My browser on Windows, Opera, just works too. And it does a lot more than work. On the contrary, you must have low expectations from your Mac if just working is considered good.
(And unfortunately my experience with Apple Quicktime on Windows is that they don't Just Work - even basic functionality such as full screen mode isn't available. Not to mention the hideous and non-standard UI - something they are supposedly praised for. Maybe you mean it Works Just on Macs, but I'm not enthusiastic about downloading anything else they release for Windows.)
Indeed. The other thing to note is that "how quickly people download it" isn't necessarily a useful statistic. Whether people all download it within a hour of release, or a month, doesn't really matter if it's still the same number of users.
There is the question of reliability of statistics, anyway - how do they take into account issues such as fake user agents, and caching? (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers - Opera in particular is penalised by the methods used to generate statistics.)
On that note, I'm reminded how Opera seems to be disliked here on Slashdot - despite being a decent IE alternative long before other alternatives such as Firefox existed - supposedly on the grounds of the browser not being Open Source, so I take it that Safari will be equally disliked here too, right? (For the pedants, yes I know Safari uses WebKit, but that doesn't make Safari Open Source.)
I find it pretty absurd that a company should be "stuck" with the contract rates it offers.
A contract is a contract... I'm not sure why not being able to back out afterwards if you change your mind is "absurd" - the whole point of a contract is that you stick with it.
(Now yes, in this case I suspect that temporary workers have zero rights, so they could easily fire them if they don't accept, but in general, I don't see how it's absurd that people are stuck with contracts that they enter.)
And considering how big salaries in USA are, it's a small miracle that they still manage to make a profit.
I don't think that follows - it's rather simplistic to assume that a company must be unprofitable. Given that many businesses with their "big salaries" have been staying in business for years, I find it unlikely that this is all chance. And whatever the cause of this recession is, it's not that salaries suddenly increased.
this is a guy you'd know, otherwise you wouldn't have his phone number
Well, there are many people for whom I have their numbers in my phone, but not their emails.
if it's an MMS worth sending, why not just call/message him and ask him for his email address?
Because it's simpler to just send it and expect it to Just Work. I thought that was what was supposed to be so great about the Iphone? - And here we are proposing workarounds such as having to call them and get them to tell you extra details for it to work...
Good for you. How does that help me when I want to show an image quickly to a friend, who doesn't have email on their phone?
Anyway, if I'm taking a photo and want a friend to see it, it'll go directly to Flickr, Facebook or TwitPic.
Not all of the photos I might want to show someone, are necessarily ones I want the whole world to see... and anyhow, that still misses the point - if their phone doesn't support email with attachments, it probably doesn't do browsing of Facebook very well either.
Sure, email might be a preferable system to MMS. But until every phone in existence supports that, it's not a good thing to throw away compatibility.
I entirely agree - and similar is true for Europe.
I would argue that trying to claim they "hate" the Iphone is still pro-Apple hate in a way - "If they're not buying the Iphone, it couldn't possibly be that they're happier using existing phones that have already been doing what the Iphone does, and more - no, it must be because they have an irrational hate for it", rationalises the Iphone fan.
And then, for bonus points, we can follow up with an article whining that this is part of some "pro-Apple agenda" - which is indeed, just what's happened.
I think that list just shows you how biased that article is - and people are complaining about Wired? I think this shows who the real untrustworthy ones are.
I don't know about Windows Mobile particularly, but large numbers of phones have decent built in browsers for free, and even for non-smartphones, anyone can (well, except Iphone users) download Opera Mini for free. Just about every phone on the market plays mp3s and views photos as standard.
I suspect what they've done is track down expensive applications on Windows Mobile, and presented them as if these were typical or the only ones available. Big deal - I could write an expensive but useless application for Windows Vista - or indeed, OS X - and then claim that therefore applications on that platform are a rip off! Yes, on the Iphone, applications are limited - the downside for all other phones is that anyone can write a rip off application, but that's a rather stupid argument to make, as no one forces you to buy it. The upside is that I can download any application from anywhere, and it Just Works.
Are we supposed to take seriously an article that throws around claims like "The mobile software market is a joke." and "It's nearly all absolute crap! Most existing mobile apps fit into one of these pathetic categories".
The only ones throwing around myths are the articles featured in this new story, not the original one.
Yes, but then if your phone has a well designed address book (like the iPhone) then all you need is one piece â" their name.
That's not what he means. If you know someone's number, but not their email (either on your phone, or at all), then even with the best address book ever (like the Motorola V980), it won't help you.
Also the problem is that many people don't have phones that can read email attachments.
Really? I can send email to machines from the 1990s and they'll read it just fine!
Well, that's very handy for contacting all those people who lug 1990-era PCs around with them! Who needs a phone, I'll just log on with my 286! Oh wait, I don't have an Internet connection, so how will that help you anyway?
Status symbols are for fools. I have no interest in "keeping up with the Joneses" or even what they think about me using some ten-year-old phone.
I entirely agree. Although having said that, I always love it when I show that my crappy old cheap phone can still do the features that they've just bragged about their Iphone doing.
I'm more concerned that someone is so petty as to trawl someone's posting history, just to make an ad hominem attack based on something that is completely irrelevant to the original post.
You fail basic reading comprehension anyway, since he was talking about health taxes, not insurance. He was talking about getting his money's worth from his taxes that he has to pay anyway - if Iphones were, heaven forbid, ever handed out to people, funded for taxation, then you can bet that he, and I, would be picking up our Iphones, since we paid for them anyway. Not to mention that his post was clearly not meant to be serious.
Here, however, keeping up with the Jones means throwing away money. If you can't see the difference between throwing money away, and taking what you've had to pay for anyway, no wonder you're happy to spend money on Iphones just to be cool.
A shame you aren't willing to be honest about your posting history, Anonymous Coward - what hypocrisy are you hiding?
Because the iPhone is a status symbol and your SoftBank isn't.
Ladies and Gentlemen, next time you hear someone saying that people don't buy the Iphone to be cool, we can all reference the parent post.
(I dispute that anyway. Sure, you might think it's a status symbol when you get it out and say "Look everyone, I'm dialing numbers and talking to someone who isn't here on my IpHoNe - isn't that cool?" but the rest of us just use our phones without making a fuss about it, suggesting we don't care. After all, if we did, we'd buy one too.)
I agree, exactly - trying to claim that Japan "hates" the Iphone is buying into the pro-Apple Iphone hype just as much. As you say, it suggests that people in the US are offended that the Iphone isn't the best selling phone elsewhere (if it is even in the US - that seems to be another myth based on hype), and it implies that even for people who don't like it, they view it as a special case, in the same way that people "hate" Windows. People might hate Windows because it's the dominant platform, but it's laughable to suggest that the Iphone is anywhere near comparable (if the article was about the Ipod, sure, that would make sense.)
The reality is that lots of people, especially outside of the US, just don't care about the Iphone, just as they don't care about most other arbtirary models of phone. ("But, but, it I can browse the web, and look at maps!" I hear someone cry - yes, just like every other phone that's been around for years.)
And now we have this joke of an article trying to spin the so-called Apple "hate" as being some kind of agenda. Um, as opposed to the pro-Apple stance that most of the rest of the media take (e.g., the way we get an article about the Iphone everytime it does something that isn't anything special - consider the joke of an article yesterday, Use Your iPhone To Get Out of a Ticket)?
It a nice refreshing change to see an article pointing out that not everyone is mad about the Iphone, and that phones in other countries have had the hyped features for years. Sorry, that's a fact - no amount of whinging that this is an "anti-Apple agenda" will change that fact.
Yes, researchers likely have caused the damage, but what people forget is that humans are part of nature.
Yes, but if you're going to play that card, then "humans rescuing frogs from disease" is also part of nature.
If the frogs your researching can't handle the act of you researching them then you have just evolved yourself out of a job. These researchers like the frogs in the wild need to adapt, find new work, or perish along with there beloved research subjects.
I'm not sure that makes much sense. Firstly, if they can save the frogs from disease, then it's not true that the frogs can't "handle" it. Secondly, if researching frogs gives us valuable information, then we shouldn't throw that away just because being a frog researcher is difficult.
Indeed - next they'll be telling us how their phone number has been "optimised" for the Iphone's dialing system, and advertising that you can now use your Iphone to talk to someone, to get you out of a ticket.
Just think, I can type numbers on my Iphone, and speak to someone without even being in the same room as them. Isn't that amazing? It's a good thing Apple invented this feature. Sure, there might have been one or two obscure devices that did this before, but with Apple, it Just Works(TM)!
You don't always want the same webpage when you visit a site on the iPhone as on a normal browser. For one, it's often nice to have pages wider than 320 px - if you limit yourself to that as a webdesigner then you're really going to be pressed.
You do realise that the Iphone isn't the only hand-held browsing device out there - and never was, by several years?
Sure, there is perhaps an argument for optimising for small browsers, but there's still no justification for optimising for the Iphone's browser.
I entirely agree. I'm scratching my head wondering what the story is here - they have a website, which is compatible with the Iphone's web browser (*gasp* a website compatible with a web browser? What a stunning achievement!) and therefore this is newsworthy, I guess because they're riding of the hype that "doing X on the Iphone" is automatically seen as newsworthy.
There's no story here. The only link is to the website itself - pure spam. The website itself just reads like a spam email. And it's doubly spam, because it's yet more free advertising for the Iphone, for a feature that phones have had for years. This isn't about some new Iphone only application, it's about navigating to the fucking website.
Normally I'd check to see if my years old phone can also reach the website, and ask if there's going to be a "Use Your Motorola V980 To Get Out of a Ticket", but in this case, I think it's best we see as little spam from this company as possible.
Next time I'm submitting a story to Slashdot, I know how to make sure it gets accepted - just point out how your can use your IpHoNe to read the link that I'm submitting, and all the Iphone fans will, it seems, mod it up.
I know everyone says that non-US phones are way ahead of us, but what UK phone had amazing integration with Google maps (or any online map provider) years ago?
Um, just about all of them except the really cheap ones that don't do Java? As the other commenter pointed out, Google have a Java client. Oh I'm sorry, I forget that the Iphone can't even support Java either, so I mean "really cheap ones, and the expensive Iphone".
For years I've seen friends with various smartphones that have GPS and mapping software (some of them choose to store the map on the phone, so they don't even need an Internet connection). I'm afraid I don't know the model of phone - you see, unlike Iphone users, when anyone else gets out their phone and uses it, they don't make a big fuss of "Hey, I'm doing this on my IpHoNe [or whatever model it is], isn't this cool!" They just get on and use it.
Which UK phone had multitouch?
Multitouch is a recent phone development, and not unique to the Iphone AIUI. I'll admit that multitouch is one neat thing that the Iphone has helped develop - all phone companies have introduced new things when they release new phones, and there's no reason for Apple to be different. I never said that the Iphone had nothing neat or new in it - but that doesn't mean that Apple invented all the things that people falsely claim were new in the Iphone.
Which UK phone had a great app store?
App store? If I see an App, I download it, and it just works. Why would I tie myself to one store? The phone providers (Vodafone, etc) provide online stores for people who don't want to go looking for it, it's been this way for years.
Which UK phone had visual voice mail?
No idea, what is this?
Which UK phone had a full blown browser years ago?
Any phone (except the cheap non-Java ones) can run Opera Mini (most have built in browsers too, albeit often not as good). Smartphones have had full blown browsers for years. Are you seriously suggesting that the Iphone is the first phone with a decent browser? I think that proves my point about just how limited the technology must be in some countries. We've been able to browse the web for years. I remember it being impressive when I saw people doing it about, oh, 2003, but for heaven's sake, it's 2009.
Which UK phone integrated perfectly with your music collection on your computer?
I can't think of a phone these days that doesn't play mp3s from your computer, and this has been around for years too.
Of course, you'll probably claim some magical significance in terms of your use of "amazing", "great", "full blown", "perfectly" - which smells like a No True Scotsman fallacy (oh, it doesn't count that it had a browser, it wasn't "full blown"). You'll have to objectively define what these terms mean, and show why the Iphone's offering was a significant and important change, and explain how it is better than everything else on the market.
For that matter did any non-US phone have all these features (and more) *years* ago?
Well, it didn't include all features, because you've listed multitouch which is a recent development in the phone industry. But it's a fallacy to claim that therefore the Iphone is the first to do all of these features! I could just as easily claim that since the Iphone can't do all the features that my years old cheap phone can do (e.g., Java, copy/paste, video recording/phoning, MMS), that therefore my phone is better in other respects too.
I didn't claim that everything on the Iphone was done years ago - that's a straw man you're attacking. But a large number of things that people do think the Iphone did first (most notably, web browsing) or are cool when the Iphone finally gets it (3G) are ancient history in the rest of the phone industry.
But honestly, from my point of view the iPhone is really advanced, not just for the US market, but for every market. But I guess it's cool to hate the iPhone on slashdot and ins
but its ui is something that can't be objectively compared, its so ahead of any thing else.
How does that follow? If they can't be objectively compared, then it's not meaningful to say that any phone is ahead. You can assert that the Iphone is ahead, but equally, one could assert that any phone is ahead. (And I disagree anyway - it's perfectly possible to objectively state how a UI is better, that's why we have things like UI guidelines and so on; whether you're capable of arguing your case of why you think the Iphone is better is another matter.)
Sorry, I'll just stick with the iPhone, and upgrade to a phone based on Android when it matures.
Similarly, I'm sticking with my Motorola V980 phone, and will upgrade to a new phone when it matures. A necessary condition for "maturity" is having basic functionality that even my years old bog standard phone has, such as copy/paste, and MMS. (Cue the "But I don't need that, so why would anyone else!" posts.)
Japanese cellphones are way way ahead of ours? Next thing you know, you'll be telling us that third-world countries have faster interweb access than we do
Indeed. I'm in the UK, which perhaps explains why the supposedly "new" Iphone offerings have been done here in ordinary phones for years. And people have the cheek to claim that other manufacturers are copying the Iphone!
What you may not be factoring in is that the vast majority of the American cell phone-buying public thinks the iPhone is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Citation needed?
And if that is the case, surely that does show how much the US phone market is behind other countries, I'm afraid.
They don't care about Linux
Who mentioned Linux? Similarly, they don't care about Iphone OS. People like to use just whatever phone, all of which can access the Internet and play their music - they don't care about which OS it runs. It's the pro-Iphone people who seem to think that this does matter.
In the UK, ordinary phones have been able to do things like web browsing, 3G, video recording/phoning/downloading, maps, copy and paste for years, and higher end phones have been offering things like wireless and GPS on top of that for ages.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed, that's the point - a sudden blip in users when a beta's released tells us nothing about long-term popularity, as is the case with Safari too.
My browser on Windows, Opera, just works too. And it does a lot more than work. On the contrary, you must have low expectations from your Mac if just working is considered good.
(And unfortunately my experience with Apple Quicktime on Windows is that they don't Just Work - even basic functionality such as full screen mode isn't available. Not to mention the hideous and non-standard UI - something they are supposedly praised for. Maybe you mean it Works Just on Macs, but I'm not enthusiastic about downloading anything else they release for Windows.)
Indeed. The other thing to note is that "how quickly people download it" isn't necessarily a useful statistic. Whether people all download it within a hour of release, or a month, doesn't really matter if it's still the same number of users.
There is the question of reliability of statistics, anyway - how do they take into account issues such as fake user agents, and caching? (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers - Opera in particular is penalised by the methods used to generate statistics.)
On that note, I'm reminded how Opera seems to be disliked here on Slashdot - despite being a decent IE alternative long before other alternatives such as Firefox existed - supposedly on the grounds of the browser not being Open Source, so I take it that Safari will be equally disliked here too, right? (For the pedants, yes I know Safari uses WebKit, but that doesn't make Safari Open Source.)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding was that contractors can stand to make a lot more money than regular employees, when they are in work?
The downside is that your job's temporary and you have fewer rights, as this article shows. That's the risk they choose to take.
I find it pretty absurd that a company should be "stuck" with the contract rates it offers.
A contract is a contract ... I'm not sure why not being able to back out afterwards if you change your mind is "absurd" - the whole point of a contract is that you stick with it.
(Now yes, in this case I suspect that temporary workers have zero rights, so they could easily fire them if they don't accept, but in general, I don't see how it's absurd that people are stuck with contracts that they enter.)
And considering how big salaries in USA are, it's a small miracle that they still manage to make a profit.
I don't think that follows - it's rather simplistic to assume that a company must be unprofitable. Given that many businesses with their "big salaries" have been staying in business for years, I find it unlikely that this is all chance. And whatever the cause of this recession is, it's not that salaries suddenly increased.
this is a guy you'd know, otherwise you wouldn't have his phone number
Well, there are many people for whom I have their numbers in my phone, but not their emails.
if it's an MMS worth sending, why not just call/message him and ask him for his email address?
Because it's simpler to just send it and expect it to Just Work. I thought that was what was supposed to be so great about the Iphone? - And here we are proposing workarounds such as having to call them and get them to tell you extra details for it to work...
Everyone I know has a phone that can do email
Good for you. How does that help me when I want to show an image quickly to a friend, who doesn't have email on their phone?
Anyway, if I'm taking a photo and want a friend to see it, it'll go directly to Flickr, Facebook or TwitPic.
Not all of the photos I might want to show someone, are necessarily ones I want the whole world to see ... and anyhow, that still misses the point - if their phone doesn't support email with attachments, it probably doesn't do browsing of Facebook very well either.
Sure, email might be a preferable system to MMS. But until every phone in existence supports that, it's not a good thing to throw away compatibility.
I would argue that trying to claim they "hate" the Iphone is still pro-Apple hate in a way
Gah, I meant pro-Apple hype.
I entirely agree - and similar is true for Europe.
I would argue that trying to claim they "hate" the Iphone is still pro-Apple hate in a way - "If they're not buying the Iphone, it couldn't possibly be that they're happier using existing phones that have already been doing what the Iphone does, and more - no, it must be because they have an irrational hate for it", rationalises the Iphone fan.
And then, for bonus points, we can follow up with an article whining that this is part of some "pro-Apple agenda" - which is indeed, just what's happened.
I think that list just shows you how biased that article is - and people are complaining about Wired? I think this shows who the real untrustworthy ones are.
I don't know about Windows Mobile particularly, but large numbers of phones have decent built in browsers for free, and even for non-smartphones, anyone can (well, except Iphone users) download Opera Mini for free. Just about every phone on the market plays mp3s and views photos as standard.
I suspect what they've done is track down expensive applications on Windows Mobile, and presented them as if these were typical or the only ones available. Big deal - I could write an expensive but useless application for Windows Vista - or indeed, OS X - and then claim that therefore applications on that platform are a rip off! Yes, on the Iphone, applications are limited - the downside for all other phones is that anyone can write a rip off application, but that's a rather stupid argument to make, as no one forces you to buy it. The upside is that I can download any application from anywhere, and it Just Works.
Are we supposed to take seriously an article that throws around claims like "The mobile software market is a joke." and "It's nearly all absolute crap! Most existing mobile apps fit into one of these pathetic categories".
The only ones throwing around myths are the articles featured in this new story, not the original one.
Because obviously an article from AppleInsider is completely trustworthy and unbiased when it comes to the Iphone!
Yes, but then if your phone has a well designed address book (like the iPhone) then all you need is one piece â" their name.
That's not what he means. If you know someone's number, but not their email (either on your phone, or at all), then even with the best address book ever (like the Motorola V980), it won't help you.
Also the problem is that many people don't have phones that can read email attachments.
Really? I can send email to machines from the 1990s and they'll read it just fine!
Well, that's very handy for contacting all those people who lug 1990-era PCs around with them! Who needs a phone, I'll just log on with my 286! Oh wait, I don't have an Internet connection, so how will that help you anyway?
Status symbols are for fools. I have no interest in "keeping up with the Joneses" or even what they think about me using some ten-year-old phone.
I entirely agree. Although having said that, I always love it when I show that my crappy old cheap phone can still do the features that they've just bragged about their Iphone doing.
I'm more concerned that someone is so petty as to trawl someone's posting history, just to make an ad hominem attack based on something that is completely irrelevant to the original post.
You fail basic reading comprehension anyway, since he was talking about health taxes, not insurance. He was talking about getting his money's worth from his taxes that he has to pay anyway - if Iphones were, heaven forbid, ever handed out to people, funded for taxation, then you can bet that he, and I, would be picking up our Iphones, since we paid for them anyway. Not to mention that his post was clearly not meant to be serious.
Here, however, keeping up with the Jones means throwing away money. If you can't see the difference between throwing money away, and taking what you've had to pay for anyway, no wonder you're happy to spend money on Iphones just to be cool.
A shame you aren't willing to be honest about your posting history, Anonymous Coward - what hypocrisy are you hiding?
Because the iPhone is a status symbol and your SoftBank isn't.
Ladies and Gentlemen, next time you hear someone saying that people don't buy the Iphone to be cool, we can all reference the parent post.
(I dispute that anyway. Sure, you might think it's a status symbol when you get it out and say "Look everyone, I'm dialing numbers and talking to someone who isn't here on my IpHoNe - isn't that cool?" but the rest of us just use our phones without making a fuss about it, suggesting we don't care. After all, if we did, we'd buy one too.)
I agree, exactly - trying to claim that Japan "hates" the Iphone is buying into the pro-Apple Iphone hype just as much. As you say, it suggests that people in the US are offended that the Iphone isn't the best selling phone elsewhere (if it is even in the US - that seems to be another myth based on hype), and it implies that even for people who don't like it, they view it as a special case, in the same way that people "hate" Windows. People might hate Windows because it's the dominant platform, but it's laughable to suggest that the Iphone is anywhere near comparable (if the article was about the Ipod, sure, that would make sense.)
The reality is that lots of people, especially outside of the US, just don't care about the Iphone, just as they don't care about most other arbtirary models of phone. ("But, but, it I can browse the web, and look at maps!" I hear someone cry - yes, just like every other phone that's been around for years.)
And now we have this joke of an article trying to spin the so-called Apple "hate" as being some kind of agenda. Um, as opposed to the pro-Apple stance that most of the rest of the media take (e.g., the way we get an article about the Iphone everytime it does something that isn't anything special - consider the joke of an article yesterday, Use Your iPhone To Get Out of a Ticket)?
It a nice refreshing change to see an article pointing out that not everyone is mad about the Iphone, and that phones in other countries have had the hyped features for years. Sorry, that's a fact - no amount of whinging that this is an "anti-Apple agenda" will change that fact.
Yes, researchers likely have caused the damage, but what people forget is that humans are part of nature.
Yes, but if you're going to play that card, then "humans rescuing frogs from disease" is also part of nature.
If the frogs your researching can't handle the act of you researching them then you have just evolved yourself out of a job. These researchers like the frogs in the wild need to adapt, find new work, or perish along with there beloved research subjects.
I'm not sure that makes much sense. Firstly, if they can save the frogs from disease, then it's not true that the frogs can't "handle" it. Secondly, if researching frogs gives us valuable information, then we shouldn't throw that away just because being a frog researcher is difficult.
Indeed - next they'll be telling us how their phone number has been "optimised" for the Iphone's dialing system, and advertising that you can now use your Iphone to talk to someone, to get you out of a ticket.
Just think, I can type numbers on my Iphone, and speak to someone without even being in the same room as them. Isn't that amazing? It's a good thing Apple invented this feature. Sure, there might have been one or two obscure devices that did this before, but with Apple, it Just Works(TM)!
You don't always want the same webpage when you visit a site on the iPhone as on a normal browser. For one, it's often nice to have pages wider than 320 px - if you limit yourself to that as a webdesigner then you're really going to be pressed.
You do realise that the Iphone isn't the only hand-held browsing device out there - and never was, by several years?
Sure, there is perhaps an argument for optimising for small browsers, but there's still no justification for optimising for the Iphone's browser.
I entirely agree. I'm scratching my head wondering what the story is here - they have a website, which is compatible with the Iphone's web browser (*gasp* a website compatible with a web browser? What a stunning achievement!) and therefore this is newsworthy, I guess because they're riding of the hype that "doing X on the Iphone" is automatically seen as newsworthy.
There's no story here. The only link is to the website itself - pure spam. The website itself just reads like a spam email. And it's doubly spam, because it's yet more free advertising for the Iphone, for a feature that phones have had for years. This isn't about some new Iphone only application, it's about navigating to the fucking website.
Normally I'd check to see if my years old phone can also reach the website, and ask if there's going to be a "Use Your Motorola V980 To Get Out of a Ticket", but in this case, I think it's best we see as little spam from this company as possible.
Next time I'm submitting a story to Slashdot, I know how to make sure it gets accepted - just point out how your can use your IpHoNe to read the link that I'm submitting, and all the Iphone fans will, it seems, mod it up.
I know everyone says that non-US phones are way ahead of us, but what UK phone had amazing integration with Google maps (or any online map provider) years ago?
Um, just about all of them except the really cheap ones that don't do Java? As the other commenter pointed out, Google have a Java client. Oh I'm sorry, I forget that the Iphone can't even support Java either, so I mean "really cheap ones, and the expensive Iphone".
For years I've seen friends with various smartphones that have GPS and mapping software (some of them choose to store the map on the phone, so they don't even need an Internet connection). I'm afraid I don't know the model of phone - you see, unlike Iphone users, when anyone else gets out their phone and uses it, they don't make a big fuss of "Hey, I'm doing this on my IpHoNe [or whatever model it is], isn't this cool!" They just get on and use it.
Which UK phone had multitouch?
Multitouch is a recent phone development, and not unique to the Iphone AIUI. I'll admit that multitouch is one neat thing that the Iphone has helped develop - all phone companies have introduced new things when they release new phones, and there's no reason for Apple to be different. I never said that the Iphone had nothing neat or new in it - but that doesn't mean that Apple invented all the things that people falsely claim were new in the Iphone.
Which UK phone had a great app store?
App store? If I see an App, I download it, and it just works. Why would I tie myself to one store? The phone providers (Vodafone, etc) provide online stores for people who don't want to go looking for it, it's been this way for years.
Which UK phone had visual voice mail?
No idea, what is this?
Which UK phone had a full blown browser years ago?
Any phone (except the cheap non-Java ones) can run Opera Mini (most have built in browsers too, albeit often not as good). Smartphones have had full blown browsers for years. Are you seriously suggesting that the Iphone is the first phone with a decent browser? I think that proves my point about just how limited the technology must be in some countries. We've been able to browse the web for years. I remember it being impressive when I saw people doing it about, oh, 2003, but for heaven's sake, it's 2009.
Which UK phone integrated perfectly with your music collection on your computer?
I can't think of a phone these days that doesn't play mp3s from your computer, and this has been around for years too.
Of course, you'll probably claim some magical significance in terms of your use of "amazing", "great", "full blown", "perfectly" - which smells like a No True Scotsman fallacy (oh, it doesn't count that it had a browser, it wasn't "full blown"). You'll have to objectively define what these terms mean, and show why the Iphone's offering was a significant and important change, and explain how it is better than everything else on the market.
For that matter did any non-US phone have all these features (and more) *years* ago?
Well, it didn't include all features, because you've listed multitouch which is a recent development in the phone industry. But it's a fallacy to claim that therefore the Iphone is the first to do all of these features! I could just as easily claim that since the Iphone can't do all the features that my years old cheap phone can do (e.g., Java, copy/paste, video recording/phoning, MMS), that therefore my phone is better in other respects too.
I didn't claim that everything on the Iphone was done years ago - that's a straw man you're attacking. But a large number of things that people do think the Iphone did first (most notably, web browsing) or are cool when the Iphone finally gets it (3G) are ancient history in the rest of the phone industry.
But honestly, from my point of view the iPhone is really advanced, not just for the US market, but for every market. But I guess it's cool to hate the iPhone on slashdot and ins
but its ui is something that can't be objectively compared, its so ahead of any thing else.
How does that follow? If they can't be objectively compared, then it's not meaningful to say that any phone is ahead. You can assert that the Iphone is ahead, but equally, one could assert that any phone is ahead. (And I disagree anyway - it's perfectly possible to objectively state how a UI is better, that's why we have things like UI guidelines and so on; whether you're capable of arguing your case of why you think the Iphone is better is another matter.)
Sorry, I'll just stick with the iPhone, and upgrade to a phone based on Android when it matures.
Similarly, I'm sticking with my Motorola V980 phone, and will upgrade to a new phone when it matures. A necessary condition for "maturity" is having basic functionality that even my years old bog standard phone has, such as copy/paste, and MMS. (Cue the "But I don't need that, so why would anyone else!" posts.)
Japanese cellphones are way way ahead of ours? Next thing you know, you'll be telling us that third-world countries have faster interweb access than we do
Indeed. I'm in the UK, which perhaps explains why the supposedly "new" Iphone offerings have been done here in ordinary phones for years. And people have the cheek to claim that other manufacturers are copying the Iphone!
What you may not be factoring in is that the vast majority of the American cell phone-buying public thinks the iPhone is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Citation needed?
And if that is the case, surely that does show how much the US phone market is behind other countries, I'm afraid.
They don't care about Linux
Who mentioned Linux? Similarly, they don't care about Iphone OS. People like to use just whatever phone, all of which can access the Internet and play their music - they don't care about which OS it runs. It's the pro-Iphone people who seem to think that this does matter.
In the UK, ordinary phones have been able to do things like web browsing, 3G, video recording/phoning/downloading, maps, copy and paste for years, and higher end phones have been offering things like wireless and GPS on top of that for ages.