The thing that kind of disturbs me is that they have phone bills at all.
It's fearsome the way that something that was only ten years ago not even considered a possibility is now so prevalent. I mean, an 8 year old with a cell phone? I can remember 10 years ago on a tram in Zurich listening to some yuppies talking about phones and how one of them "really needed one" and my reaction was "do you bollocks."
Maybe i'm just getting old. When i was about 10 i saved up for two years to get a game boy.
One of the major criticisms i have of most phones is that they try to do too much and do it badly. I have a Motorola A1000 and it's a heap of shit. The only reason i keep it is because it does everything i want it to. However it does it so apallingly that as soon as a phone comes out with similar features that is better i'm going to get it. It looks like the iPhone is that phone.
I also can't understand people criticising His Steveness' decision to have tight control over the platform.
I have a gameboy emulator and a SNES emulator on my A1000. They're both open source and written by god knows who, and they have been known to take my phone down with them. But even in its default configuration my phone can still crash. I think that's the worst thing that could ever happen - having a phone crash? It's an appliance! You wouldn't want to walk into your kitchen, put some food in the oven, set the timer and walk away only to come back to find a BSOD saying "Sorry, this oven has performed an illegal instruction and will be shut down".
Apple doesn't want their new phone to do that. THe idea that a badly written program can take down a network is clearly bollocks, but that doesn't mean there aren't perfectly good reasons for closing the platform. The other really important one is simply a matter of money.
Cellular networks really like lock-in. I've seen phones that have bluetooth that you can only receive from, not send anything. So if you want to send a picture you have to use MMS. This makes them money but pisses off anyone with a clue.
If apple can offer a service that people want to use that the networks can, theoretically, charge for, they're going to have a bargaining chip on their table, and by the looks of things the product isn't nearly finished enough for them to have finalised their negotiations with Cingular on this topic. In that sense cellular providers are complete bastards. I mean, did you see that guy at the Stevenote? i wouldn't have touched his hand with a bargepole let alone shook it.
Someone like apple entering a market for the first time isn't really in a position of power to release an open phone and go "fuck you" to the networks. The iPhone would cost almost as much as a iBook if it were unsibsidised - would you really pay £700 for a phone?
Handset manufacturers need the network providers muscle to get these phones thrown around like fashion statements, and as the market currently stands that's the game that apple is forced to play. If apple didn't do what the networks wanted then the iphone simply would not exist in the market - they need the subsidy.
We've got the luxury in europe (this time) of seeing what pans out with the iPhone technically. Also this quote "That doesn't mean there's not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us" from His Steveness kind of reaffirms the pay-for content idea being likely. Anything that gets onto the phone has to go through apple (officially). So look at the iTunes/iPod thing and take it from there - you'll be able to buy things for your phone through iTMS.
One thing that everyone on slashdot has to remember, always, and with everything, is that PEOPLE ARE DUMB. They don't understand stuff like whiting code and openness and all the principled stuff that gets griped about here. Apple is aiming the iPhone squarely at The Masses, and The Masses want a phone that works. Having all and sundry releasing software for the phone will jeopardise its stability and if the phone is seen as being an unstable piece of shit it won't sell. Smartphones are NOT mass-market devices, and apple is trying to MAKE them appealing to The Masses. So with that aim in mind and the fact that apple is obliged to do a deal with one network provider or another means that they has do do things the way a) the network providers want and b) in a way that's going to make them all money and c) will not jeopardise the end user experience of the phone, which
I thought this one up towards the end of my electronics degree two years ago, except mine was better.
It was a spherical droid type thing with weights and motors and motion/proximity sensors and all sorts of things inside it, and some way of telling if you were asleep or not.
As soon as you dropped off, this fucker would run away and hide, rolling over as much junk as possible. When it was time to go off, it would screech with a 120dB siren from a rape alarm, and as soon as it saw you approaching it would try to escape, by thwacking down a pneumatic thingy to jump around the room, possibly attack you, electrocute you, and yes, turning the fucker off was gonna be hard.
How pissed was i when i read about this in the newspaper the other day. That, and in this thread, everyone else has come up with pretty much the same ideas I did, although 2 years later.
should have patented that fucker. Has this sort of thing happened to loads of other people here, or am i the only one?
Most people don't actually care. The vast majority of people simply don't know what a program is, what an operating system is, what a CPU is or whatever. To them, you click this little button to print, that little button to shutdown, and you click on "Internet Explorer" to "Explore the internet".
That's why its such a great name for a web browser, and also the reason why Apple introduced a little "Browse the Internet" icon in MacOS 8 which launched your default browser.
The real reason why Firefox is not a threat is because People Are Dumb.
Slashdot Mirror
...they're banning the internet?
The sentence is fine, it's Dow Chemical I'm worried about.
The thing that kind of disturbs me is that they have phone bills at all.
It's fearsome the way that something that was only ten years ago not even considered a possibility is now so prevalent. I mean, an 8 year old with a cell phone? I can remember 10 years ago on a tram in Zurich listening to some yuppies talking about phones and how one of them "really needed one" and my reaction was "do you bollocks."
Maybe i'm just getting old. When i was about 10 i saved up for two years to get a game boy.
We have it so easy.
2000 years later...
Archaeologist A: Wow! A graveyard from the early 21st century, and it's perfectly preserved!
Archaeologist B: An awesom find!
A: I can't begin to imagine how much we can learn from this...
B: Yeah... oh look! This one has a kind of primitive digital inscription!
A: Can you activate it?
B: Reconfiguring my power source now... ah yes...
A: What is it?
B: A strange message..
A: What?
B: "This gravestone has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. Would you like to tell Microsoft about this problem?"
A: Who is Microsoft?
I don't really see what the problem is here.
One of the major criticisms i have of most phones is that they try to do too much and do it badly. I have a Motorola A1000 and it's a heap of shit. The only reason i keep it is because it does everything i want it to. However it does it so apallingly that as soon as a phone comes out with similar features that is better i'm going to get it. It looks like the iPhone is that phone.
I also can't understand people criticising His Steveness' decision to have tight control over the platform.
I have a gameboy emulator and a SNES emulator on my A1000. They're both open source and written by god knows who, and they have been known to take my phone down with them. But even in its default configuration my phone can still crash. I think that's the worst thing that could ever happen - having a phone crash? It's an appliance! You wouldn't want to walk into your kitchen, put some food in the oven, set the timer and walk away only to come back to find a BSOD saying "Sorry, this oven has performed an illegal instruction and will be shut down".
Apple doesn't want their new phone to do that. THe idea that a badly written program can take down a network is clearly bollocks, but that doesn't mean there aren't perfectly good reasons for closing the platform. The other really important one is simply a matter of money.
Cellular networks really like lock-in. I've seen phones that have bluetooth that you can only receive from, not send anything. So if you want to send a picture you have to use MMS. This makes them money but pisses off anyone with a clue.
If apple can offer a service that people want to use that the networks can, theoretically, charge for, they're going to have a bargaining chip on their table, and by the looks of things the product isn't nearly finished enough for them to have finalised their negotiations with Cingular on this topic. In that sense cellular providers are complete bastards. I mean, did you see that guy at the Stevenote? i wouldn't have touched his hand with a bargepole let alone shook it.
Someone like apple entering a market for the first time isn't really in a position of power to release an open phone and go "fuck you" to the networks. The iPhone would cost almost as much as a iBook if it were unsibsidised - would you really pay £700 for a phone?
Handset manufacturers need the network providers muscle to get these phones thrown around like fashion statements, and as the market currently stands that's the game that apple is forced to play. If apple didn't do what the networks wanted then the iphone simply would not exist in the market - they need the subsidy.
We've got the luxury in europe (this time) of seeing what pans out with the iPhone technically. Also this quote "That doesn't mean there's not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us" from His Steveness kind of reaffirms the pay-for content idea being likely. Anything that gets onto the phone has to go through apple (officially). So look at the iTunes/iPod thing and take it from there - you'll be able to buy things for your phone through iTMS.
One thing that everyone on slashdot has to remember, always, and with everything, is that PEOPLE ARE DUMB. They don't understand stuff like whiting code and openness and all the principled stuff that gets griped about here. Apple is aiming the iPhone squarely at The Masses, and The Masses want a phone that works. Having all and sundry releasing software for the phone will jeopardise its stability and if the phone is seen as being an unstable piece of shit it won't sell. Smartphones are NOT mass-market devices, and apple is trying to MAKE them appealing to The Masses. So with that aim in mind and the fact that apple is obliged to do a deal with one network provider or another means that they has do do things the way a) the network providers want and b) in a way that's going to make them all money and c) will not jeopardise the end user experience of the phone, which
Heh
I, on the other hand, have absolutely no idea how to work the % button on a calculator.
It was a spherical droid type thing with weights and motors and motion/proximity sensors and all sorts of things inside it, and some way of telling if you were asleep or not.
As soon as you dropped off, this fucker would run away and hide, rolling over as much junk as possible. When it was time to go off, it would screech with a 120dB siren from a rape alarm, and as soon as it saw you approaching it would try to escape, by thwacking down a pneumatic thingy to jump around the room, possibly attack you, electrocute you, and yes, turning the fucker off was gonna be hard.
How pissed was i when i read about this in the newspaper the other day. That, and in this thread, everyone else has come up with pretty much the same ideas I did, although 2 years later.
should have patented that fucker. Has this sort of thing happened to loads of other people here, or am i the only one?
An excellent and cunning use of salami tactics ;)
Most people don't actually care. The vast majority of people simply don't know what a program is, what an operating system is, what a CPU is or whatever. To them, you click this little button to print, that little button to shutdown, and you click on "Internet Explorer" to "Explore the internet". That's why its such a great name for a web browser, and also the reason why Apple introduced a little "Browse the Internet" icon in MacOS 8 which launched your default browser. The real reason why Firefox is not a threat is because People Are Dumb.