I'm actually looking for a new phone, but really, the coverage of this device has been completely OTT. Despite all the talk of it being revolutionary, it really isn't. There are devices that already do what this does, and thankfully, the reviews were tucked away where they should have been - in the Reviews section of the papers, not on the front page.
It'll sell bucketloads, of course, but I think we'll see some post-hype disappointment that this is just another phone.
"The key word here is _multi_. Most existing touch screen technologies only allow for a SINGLE point of contact for touch detection. The sensor embedded in the iPhone allows for multiple points of contact, thus allowing things like resizing of images by "pinching", etc. Traditional touchscreens aren't capable of doing this as they only emit a single X/Y coordinate for each touch."
That's a gimmick, not a useful feature. Sure, seeing you "pinch" your photos is nifty, but after the first few days, how often are you ever going to use it?
I think they can still make money from music. What they need to do is price it at a point where people view it as a better use of their time/cost than downloading.
Take ringtones. People buy them by the million despite many phones having an MP3 to Ringtone feature because people value things like time and simplicity over "free".
I don't know about Fopp, but the reason record companies are suffering is that they have utterly failed to rise to the challenge of downloads (legal and illegal) and discounting in supermarkets.
You go into Virgin or HMV, how is the experience different to what it was 10 years ago? It isn't. CDs in racks, often at ludicrous prices. Dull interiors, no character whatsoever. It's like the internet never happened.
Don't retailers get this? I can go and buy a CD from Amazon for less than you, without having to drive to town. I can possibly download it from iTunes right now. You need to offer something that I can't get online.
Vista was going to take time to bed in, for the machines to get powerful enough to make it run well, and Apple have focussed on the iPhone instead. Which personally, I think will sell bucketloads at first, and then tail off due to price (and I am a sceptic about the touch screen).
With a million pounds, you could give up work and stay at home all day. If you went away, you could stay at places like the Ritz AND afford the ridiculous phone charges in hotels.
If I didn't have to work, I could comfortably live without a cellphone.
My favourite example of technology was who buys what in the way of PDAs (I know they're on the way out). The people with the most whizzo devices that could play video, read Word docs and so forth were high-earning guys who never used them much. The salespeople who called at places used either a basic Palm or a paper organiser.
I mostly have a mobile phone for work. Sure, it's convenient to be at a supermarket, and your partner can ask you to pick up some wine, but looking at it on balance, with a million quid, you don't need to work, so going home and going back out again to get the wine is hardly an unaffordable option (and the lost 30 minutes is better than the lost 8 hours at work).
Either someone's got to write a decent Greasemonkey script, or I'm keeping away from Digg/Slashdot for 2 weeks after the 29th.
You know that the TV stations are going to show people queueing outside, then rushing in so they can buy A PHONE with the same enthusiasm as mythical Greeks getting cookery lessons from prometheus.
I've got a Nokia 6680 smartphone running Symbian. It came with a driver disk. When plugged into the USB port, it shows as a drive. I can drop files in (music, pictures, Python scripts) or take them off. It synchronises with Outlook for contacts.
That's a phone I got 18 months ago. It plugs into my computer just fine.
"What would make this device more likely to produce one that others couldn't and, more annoyingly, are the unique qualities of this phone actually a HINDRANCE (try touch-dialing on completely zero-tactile-feedback plexi)?"
The problem was about early perception. There was a certain amount of selling of it on the basis that "it runs OSX". Developers immediately hooked onto this as thinking that it meant they would have something in the Mac dev tools where they could compile software for the iPhone or write widgets for it.
Google also have a phone version of their mail client, and a phone version of their maps application.
I think a lot of iPhone fans haven't tried browsing on a phone to do things. Ask anyone who's got the Google Mail app installed to show you the difference between that and browsing to googlemail on a phone on 3G.
A year ago, I remember everyone saying "look out for Leopard, it's coming soon after Vista and will kick its ass". I've seen the key features of Leopard listed, and there's just nothing there of much substance.
AJAX is the SDK for the iPhone? So, anyone doing smartphone development isn't going to go to the iPhone. They'll carry on developing for Symbian and for.net CF. Try the Gmail Mobile application, then try Gmail through a browser. There's no competition.
As for Safari on Windows, I've tried it. It's not that great. It's slower than IE. And looks hideous. And for Microsoft it means that web developers on Windows won't get a Mac to check how their site looks.
This is a classic trick of anti-capitalist lefties (and looking at who is on their committees, there's a whole bunch of them).
Look at how much scorn is pushed onto Starbucks, despite being quite decent to their suppliers, staff and the environment. If they were the 2nd biggest coffee shop chain in the world, the scorn would not exist.
So, Google, despite behaving a great deal better than Yahoo over privacy get nobbled.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm actually looking for a new phone, but really, the coverage of this device has been completely OTT. Despite all the talk of it being revolutionary, it really isn't. There are devices that already do what this does, and thankfully, the reviews were tucked away where they should have been - in the Reviews section of the papers, not on the front page.
It'll sell bucketloads, of course, but I think we'll see some post-hype disappointment that this is just another phone.
That's a gimmick, not a useful feature. Sure, seeing you "pinch" your photos is nifty, but after the first few days, how often are you ever going to use it?
Take ringtones. People buy them by the million despite many phones having an MP3 to Ringtone feature because people value things like time and simplicity over "free".
You go into Virgin or HMV, how is the experience different to what it was 10 years ago? It isn't. CDs in racks, often at ludicrous prices. Dull interiors, no character whatsoever. It's like the internet never happened.
Don't retailers get this? I can go and buy a CD from Amazon for less than you, without having to drive to town. I can possibly download it from iTunes right now. You need to offer something that I can't get online.
Vista was going to take time to bed in, for the machines to get powerful enough to make it run well, and Apple have focussed on the iPhone instead. Which personally, I think will sell bucketloads at first, and then tail off due to price (and I am a sceptic about the touch screen).
Not really the test. The test is whether I'd replace my current ugly lump with an iPhone, or something else.
My answer is something else (Nokia N95), and here's why:-
"There is the iPhone and the rest"? You're not even close.
If I didn't have to work, I could comfortably live without a cellphone.
My favourite example of technology was who buys what in the way of PDAs (I know they're on the way out). The people with the most whizzo devices that could play video, read Word docs and so forth were high-earning guys who never used them much. The salespeople who called at places used either a basic Palm or a paper organiser.
I mostly have a mobile phone for work. Sure, it's convenient to be at a supermarket, and your partner can ask you to pick up some wine, but looking at it on balance, with a million quid, you don't need to work, so going home and going back out again to get the wine is hardly an unaffordable option (and the lost 30 minutes is better than the lost 8 hours at work).
You know that the TV stations are going to show people queueing outside, then rushing in so they can buy A PHONE with the same enthusiasm as mythical Greeks getting cookery lessons from prometheus.
You forgot: via a 3G connection... that you don't have.
After all, the Nokia N95 does it right now.
Most smartphone users have the option of 3rd party applications. To get a new version, you delete the old one and download a new one.
"great" response: "Well, Apple, as usual made a phone that Just Worked"
"POS" response: "Apple did something revolutionary and were just too far ahead of the curve" (this is the normal excuse for Newton).
I like the blather about the "revolutionary way to deliver applications". These guys fell straight into line.
That's a phone I got 18 months ago. It plugs into my computer just fine.
The problem was about early perception. There was a certain amount of selling of it on the basis that "it runs OSX". Developers immediately hooked onto this as thinking that it meant they would have something in the Mac dev tools where they could compile software for the iPhone or write widgets for it.
Google also have a phone version of their mail client, and a phone version of their maps application.
I think a lot of iPhone fans haven't tried browsing on a phone to do things. Ask anyone who's got the Google Mail app installed to show you the difference between that and browsing to googlemail on a phone on 3G.
Then there's the whole indie scene to consider.
Or alternatively, buy a Mac and find yourself limited from the vast majority of popular games.
A year ago, I remember everyone saying "look out for Leopard, it's coming soon after Vista and will kick its ass". I've seen the key features of Leopard listed, and there's just nothing there of much substance.
AJAX is the SDK for the iPhone? So, anyone doing smartphone development isn't going to go to the iPhone. They'll carry on developing for Symbian and for .net CF. Try the Gmail Mobile application, then try Gmail through a browser. There's no competition.
As for Safari on Windows, I've tried it. It's not that great. It's slower than IE. And looks hideous. And for Microsoft it means that web developers on Windows won't get a Mac to check how their site looks.
I've tried it next to Opera. The speed differences weren't noticable, and Opera has a whole lot else going for it.
Explain why they've put Google in a worse position than Yahoo, despite Yahoo being far more free with their users personal information, then.
Particularly as Apple computers normally have longer lives than PCs (I say this as a PC user).
Look at how much scorn is pushed onto Starbucks, despite being quite decent to their suppliers, staff and the environment. If they were the 2nd biggest coffee shop chain in the world, the scorn would not exist.
So, Google, despite behaving a great deal better than Yahoo over privacy get nobbled.
because a PC tower won't fit in that dead space under your desk.