Well, we know it to the extent that Apple is presenting it in that manner. You could argue that we don't even know if there WILL be an iPhone since all we have is what Apple says.
I don't have any problem with speculation. I have a problem with a poster who slaps down speculation of others, claims to be the champion of facts, then offers his own speculation as fact. If he wants to discuss what is truly known, then his own imaginings deserve the same fate.
As an example, he had a cow when it was speculated that the iPhone didn't have a SIM slot. Then, when pictures indicating the likely location of a SIM slot surfaced, he announced that the device did, in fact, have a user-accessible SIM slot. He doesn't actually "know" it's user-accessible or that it's actually the SIM slot, he just makes assumptions into fact. Yesterday Apple released details of the iTunes activation and it is now believed that the SIM card is not changable. We don't know any of this until we can get one, but it is an example of his double standard.
I like iPhone speculation, what I don't like is obvious bias.
"So.. no, I never thought the iPod had excessive failures. Owned four iPods without a single failure. You and I, we have different definitions of perfect. My definition of perfect is "usable", because a feature or product that can't be used or is difficult to use is essentially useless."
That's a remarkably unusual experience with iPod failures, suspiciously unusual in fact. I don't see your "definition of "perfect" appearing in the dictionary any time soon, either. I guess if we can redefine words at our leisure then we will never be wrong.
"You value drag and drop; I value convenience. I liked (loved, really), that with the original iPod all I had to do was plug it in; no management, no organization, or file manipulation."
I never said I valued that, but if you think you did absolutely nothing other than plug it in then you are fooling yourself. Exaggeration is a hallmark of a fanboy.
"If you want to think of the iPod as an incremental improvement, you can."
I never said that, either. I acknowledged that the iPod could be considered that. I didn't express an opinion.
"I think a 10x, order of magnitude, increase in upload speed (USB1 vs Firewire) is huge and not incremental."
Oh boy, you are really reaching for something here. Firewire vs USB 1.0 download speeds hardly makes the iPod "hugely more accessible than it's predecessors". That's what you said. Why are you bullshitting like this?
"I think a 80x increase in storage (64mb to 5gb) in the same form factor is huge, and not incremental."
Now you're comparing the hard drive iPod to flash players at the time? How about comparing it to existing hard drive players? Oh yeah, because it offered far less storage AND battery life than those devices! Bullshitter...
"I think access speed increases (from CD->HD, HD->RAM, etc) the iPod implemented were huge..."
Now you're just making crap up. The iPod has absolutely nothing to do with any of that. You are technically illiterate.
"...they certainly impressed the world when everyone was used to the seek times of CDs, the UI of the Nomad Jukebox, etc."
Other than form factor and menu system, how did the iPod compete with the Nomad? Poorly as I recall. The Nomad offered the same "seek time" advantages as the iPod. Convenient how you dance around comparisons that don't support your world view.
"Not certainly all of Apple's competitors have been able to copy these features..."
You have that backwards. Apple copied these features from their competitors. Apple's distinction was the packaging and the scroll wheel (which they ripped off of video equipment). Once again, you've demonstrated your fanboyism.
"The reason Apple gets the bonus points (and marketshare) is they managed to tie it all together before everyone else could."
Once again, that's your opinion, one I don't share, and one not supported by any facts. There is nothing to "tie" together. The iPod was successful because it was stylish and marketed to the hip. It was not a big success until gen2 when Apple began supporting Windows.
"There were at least two HDD based MP3 players before the iPod, but they were 4x as big and 5x as heavy and 10x slower."
More lies. None where 4x bigger, 5x heavier OR 10x slower. The iPod was no speed demon and its hard drive was smaller and slower than its competition. You sure like to make facts up. Were you even born then?
"There were several flash based MP3 players before the iPod, but they had 1/10th the storage capacity and difficult to read screens."
Apple's first flash player was a piece of crap as well and its screen was REALLY hard to read.
"You can really believe whatever you want, but history, I think, will remember Apple for doing the MP3 player right, first."
Your history maybe. Of course, since you're free to define "right" just as you are "perfect", how can you be wrong?
"Unlike the Mac, Apple hasn't dropped the ball with the iPod, continually adding refinements, increasing it's user base, and dropping the price in a steady manner."
You got that totally backwards as well. The Mac has seen tremendous progress recently whereas the iPod just gets a shiny new facelift periodically.
"I'm curious what facts I get wrong, can you tell me?"
I listed them explicitly in my post. What part did you not understand?
"1) Failure rates for the iPod don't seem excessively high... compare to the red ring of death or scratched discs for the XBox 360, for example."
I suppose that depends on your definition of "excessively high". I'd say iPod failures are quite high even if you compare them to the XBox360. My personal failure rates on those devices are similar. iPods have crappy batteries and never turn off.
Nevertheless, the claim was that Apple makes "the iPod as perfect as they can". Perhaps by that you meant that Apple just can't make an iPod very well. I would agree with that. Everyone else understands what an on/off switch is. Funny that Apple figured that out with the shuffle.
"4) What reasons do you ascribe to their success?"
Apple is a boutique manufacturer---they market style over substance. When people buy into the style they are easily convinced of the substance even when it's not there. "do things right" is something Apple achieves at times but it's not what they are about.
"The iPod is hugely more accessible than it's predecessors, Rio Karma, Nomad Jukebox, Samsung Yepp, or even CD-based MP3 players."
I guess if "hugely" is a synonym for "incrementally". I'd say aspects of the iPod are better than the competition and others are not. For example, some Rio players allowed you to install music using the device as USB block storage. For those of us who don't like being tied to host software, that's superior to the iPod. Many of those other devices support more formats as well. Regardless, there is no way anyone could say the differences are "huge". That's nothing other than fanboy hyperbole.
"Compared to the modern Zen Micro, Microsoft Zune, or the iRiver Clix, I would say that the iPod is no simpler than any of the others... Then the issue boils down to momentum coupled with continuing refinements. iTunes and the iTunes Store continue to be lauded in the face of the Zune Marketplace, Amazon Unbox, Creative Soundstage, Sony Connect, etc."
How is this even remotely a defense for your preposterous original claims?
"Then the killer... is this something your parents can do? Your neice? Your next door neighbor?
That's Apple's secret. The iPod is accessible to everyone, not just geeks."
Funny how you make ridiculous claims, take offense to being called on them, then change your points to something far more reasonable. Yes, the iPod is comparable to other players and more desirable to many. Yes, iTunes is more mature and successful than it's competition. These are hardly the arguments of "perfect as it can be", "do it right", and "something your parents can do".
Sure, if you only want 200 SMS messages. On T-mobile, $20 gets you unlimited text and data. Here, you have to pay $40 for that. I guess these rates seem reasonable until you compare them to others, but if you think that unlimited SMS for a $20 upcharge is reasonable then you are crazy.
"- Since one would presume the iPod functionality of the device still needs to work when the contract expires, there is probably going to be a fairly easy hack/workaround to use only the iPod functionality (e.g., perhaps just a file sitting somewhere, a la.AppleSetupDone)."
Why would one presume this, Dave? It's a cellphone, and some cellphones refuse to power on without a working SIM card. It appears the iPhone may be one of those. So much for being an iPod with cellular capabilities, eh?
"- It will be interesting to see whether AT&T will unlock the phone on request, as they do for other GSM phones (for international travel and prepaid SIMs), and if that is the case, how well other carriers' networks work with iPhone (obviously sans things like Visual Voicemail)."
Haven't you already declared as fact that all this will work, Dave? I seem to have had this conversation before.
"- Still no word on battery replacement specifics, but it seems safe to assume that iPhone is the same as iPod in this respect; namely, that it is sealed and that the battery isn't "user accessible", but that there will still be plenty of ways to replace the battery yourself or via third parties if you so choose (battery failure under warranty would be covered by the warranty)."
Why would this be safe to assume, Dave? Are you so embarrassed by an Apple product's shortcomings that you have to continually make up excuses and assumptions? Why can't you leave this just as it is? No user replacable battery.
"I'm going to be tracking this issue here."
Why would you bother doing that? I thought you weren't a fanboy? It's amazing your singular dedication to one product and one company for someone who only cares about the objective facts.
"WiFi via the browser will probably work fine as-is without a contract. Note: it is not certain that this is the case, but it seems likely."
Why does this seem likely? Why are you so motivated to make assumptions about how this device will work? Why can't you just say that we don't know until it ships? The iPhone is locked to AT&T services. That's how it is until we know otherwise.
"- Also remains to be seen how "hackable" the phone is in general. Here's to hoping."
Just come out and say it, Dave. The iPhone will be everyone's dream machine.
"Have you ever tried using an N-Gage ? Have you ever used one of the high-end Nokia 'smart' phones, like e.g. the new N95 ? They suck. The user interface is a mess, the phones are slow and unresponsive, the casing feels really cheap and plastic. And these are expensive phones.
Every high end phone on the market right now sucks ass. They are a pain to work with, they are slow, unstable and feel flimsy. The phone manufacturers are trying to beat the competition by rushing out new phones with all the newest features as soon as they can, with no regards to quality or user experience."
Yes they do! I wouldn't say every phone is flimsy, but the software on every single one of them sucks. Frankly, it's a sad state of affairs when Windows Mobile is best of breed but it honestly is. I've always felt that the real opportunity of the iPhone isn't in any of its features (which are questionable) but in the possibility that its software doesn't suck.
How is this "Insightful"? He makes judgement calls for an Åpple product and against a non-Apple product, he gets facts wrong and he glorifies a device that hasn't shipped yet.
1) Apple has not made the iPod as perfect as they can. Just look at the failure rates. 2) Sony managed to be "hip" long before Apple. They made the portable music player famous. 3) Yes it was. 4) That is a matter of personal opinion. My opinion is that it's for very different reasons.
Treos ARE targeted at "customers". They have certainly had such ads. They are well known for the ease of use of both their device and the sync software. Yes, syncing is just a matter of "plugging it in". Treo "invented" threaded SMS, a feature Apple ripped off for the iPhone. None of these things have even been proven in the market by the iPhone. BTW, I hate Treos.
Who knows if the iPhone is "something your parents can do". Mine certainly couldn't. Between a Treo and an iPhone, I don't know which they would manage better, but I know they wouldn't want either.
The iPod is accessible to everyone? That's real news. 6 months ago, I was told by an Apple employee that fully half of all Genius Bar hours are devoted to iPod issues and virtually all of those issues involve training. You grossly overestimate the accessibility of the iPod to the general public.
So, now that Apple's done it, it's suddenly important?
Since YouTube has never offered H.264 acccess before, no one has done it. Now that they do, potentially many can. Whether they will is a question of how desirable it is. Just because Apple is adding it doesn't mean it's worth a crap.
Which AJAX developers do you think suddenly developed an interest, the ones who don't have macs? Why do you think that would be?
Of the two or three people who have rushed out iPhone AJAX app prototypes, do you think any of them don't have macs? You think they all did it on PC Safari beta? Notice that all the demos are locked to Safari?
I do agree that, judging by how many sites don't work in Safari, there aren't many developers testing with it but I also think the few that are contain 100% of the iPhone AJAX interest. In fact, so far the interest is entirely within the diehard Apple base IMO. No one else would waste their time prototyping on an unknown platform with unknown capabilities and zero marketshare.
That's true. In fact, there isn't even a problem. More competition is good.
I use a mac and Safari is of absolutely no interest to me on any platform. If Apple wants to put effort into making Safari available on a PC I think that's great.
For the same reasons that Windows developers don't want to develop for other cellphone platforms. Cellphones are different from desktops. If they did want to develop for a cellphone platform, why would they want to develop for the iPhone? It is only one phone and it is proprietary and closed. There are several other established platforms that have actual marketshare. One of those, the one with the biggest 3rd party software community, offers tools that are familiar to them.
The only developers lusting after iPhone development in the beginning were mac developers. When it became clear that no SDK would be offered and this AJAX joke was taking its place, select AJAX developers suddenly took interest. You think those guys don't have macs? You think they were saying to themselves "if only there was Safari on my PC"?
If Safari on Windows is such a huge benefit to iPhone development, why didn't it occur to Jobs to even mention it during his introduction?
"So which is it now, everything I said was incorrect, or only you couldn't find kernel design references that were used in WinCE that came from NT, so you are going to pretend that is the only point you have contention with because you found out the other information I supplied was correct?"
It is none of that. You chose to argue with me, not the other way around. I'll point out that you offered nothing that actually contested my points. All you did was put words in my mouth.
"MS originally planned on using a variation of the kernel design of the Win3.1 or Win95 architecture, but when they found they could use a modified form of the NT kernel technologies without doing the client/server kernel design of NT(i.e. pushing the API interfaces to related to an agnostic kernel and embed the APIs needed for the WinCE platform), it would meet their minimalist memory requirements and offer features needed for terminal type computing devices, like true pre-emptive and near real-time performance."
So you now admit you were lying when you claimed "WindowsCE is technically using a variant of the NT fork, just like Vista."
In reality, they only share design similarities. All this in response to my claim that "It is also using an OS not specifically written for low power devices." An absolute truism I will add.
"I'm not here to argue WinCE is the NT kernel..."
It's a good thing now that you've admitted it isn't. Why didn't you do that in the first place?
"WinCE was designed specifically to fit into low MEMORY footprint devices, it was not designed for low power or any other claim you seem to be making."
"...its basis was the NT kernel and it ALSO was NOT SPECIFCIALLY designed for power usage any more than NT was, which was my main and original point. It was designed to fit in a small memory footprint and was used for small 'terminal' type computing originally, not Mobile or PDA technology."
Small memory footprint and low power go together and somewhat interrelate. It is, however, irrelevant since WinCE is your example, not mine. There are other OSes specifically designed for these types of devices and they emphasize both low power and low memory footprint since those are characteristics of such devices. It is a fact that MacOS was not designed with low power devices in mind. It is also true that it was not designed specifically for low memory footprint, although what that means changes with time. Talk WinCE all you want...all you are doing is redirecting an argument YOU started into something you hope you can win.
Incidently, my OS X point was not criticism of the iPhone, it was a direct counter-argument to the absurd, fanboyish suggestion that "battery life was a secret feature of the iPhone". I never said it was an iPhone weakness or that it couldn't work well. Those were your mistakes.
"As I mentioned at the begining, you seem to focus only the credibility of WinCE, but you no longer are arguing about Windows Embedded XP/Vista. Why is that?"
Really? Just who introduced WinCE and Embedded XP/Vista into the conversation? I could give a shit and never mentioned any og those things.
"I actually think that no matter what I say, you are going to try to dismiss whatever crack you think you can get water into. So with that in mind I realize you are proud of your ignorance and determined to keep it.
Good Day..."
Indeed! You are so kind and friendly.
Now, why don't you go back and read my post which, while factually correct and not disparaging of the iPhone/OS X in any way, motivated an unjustified response from you, then stick your WinCE arguments up your ass?
That what this entire article and the one it linked to are about!!! He didn't have to catch it, that's all there is.
The problem is all the apologists who've decided without reason that Safari is only made available for iPhone testing. I sincerely doubt there are developers chomping at the bit to write iPhone AJAX apps that don't have a mac. Typical/.
Windows isn't a browser, Safari isn't superior to IE, and the Mozilla CEO specifically said he wasn't concerned with Firefox marketshare. Thanks for trying so hard to get the details correct.
"I assume you can find wikipedia.com or microsoft.com, so go do your own freaking homework.
It is not my responsibility that you are this stupid and unwilling to educate yourself."
This coming from someone who thinks WindowsCE is a variant of Windows. It's the responsibility of those making idiotic statements to back them up. I knew you couldn't.
"BTW, yes I and a lot of other people on SlashDot have seen a lot of OS kernel code, from Linux to even NT core code, and especially MACH with a BSD interface, which is what OS X is. Do you also not realize that many of us have seen and worked with Darwin specifically?"
I realize that there are people here who DO do that, but you aren't one of them.
"Even just questioning the accuracy of the Windows Embedded or WindowsCE/Pocket PC example I gave you is an immediate red flag that you are more stupid than anyone would have expected even on SlashDot."
That's because it's blatantly incorrect. WindowsCE/PocketPC (not that they've been called that for a long time) were independent products from Windows. They were not derivatives.
"I apologize for responding to your post, I assumed you might care or have a clue of what you were talking about. It is obvious you don't."
Surely you can bluff better than this. If you're going to call me stupid, perhaps you should check your facts first. Meanwhile, keep dreaming you're a Darwin programmer. Maybe someday after you reach puberty you might understand what that means.
No I didn't mean that and it's obvious from the context that I couldn't have possibly meant that. Thanks, though, for making a point that can't be disputed.
"Funnily enough, this iphone is a much more powerful workstation than the machines that OS was designed for."
Bullshit. You think CoreImage was designed for a 68030 class machine? Considering that we know nothing of the iPhone's hardware capability, your statement couldn't possibly be right regardless of what OS X was "designed for". You realize that capabilities of OS X that are being touted in the iPhone are brand new?
What is with you fanboys trying to talk up the iPhone's hardware capabilities when nothing has ever been documented?
It's all irrelevant. I was responding to a battery life comment and my point about OS X and what is designed for has only to do with battery life. I never commented on its performance or capability.
It is a fact that every other PDA/smartphone OS platform has specific design details tailored to very low power and small memory footprint. It is unlikely, though possible, that OS X has received such changes since porting large libraries and sharing large portions of OS code is incompatible with that. Anyone who think Windows Mobile is Windows with a few pieces trimmed off is sadly mistaken. WM, Symbian, and PalmOS are written exclusively for ultra-low power devices and OS X is not.
So you are attacking me personally now? Is that the best you can do?
Every manufacturer makes up battery life claims. Apple doesn't just do that, they've refined bullet-point lying to a fine art. They've even changed their battery life estimates on the iPhone before first ship, and let's not forget their desktop "supercomputer" Altivec lies. It's just par for the course.
"Yes, I own a MacBook. No, I'm not getting an iPhone."
Then you aren't unlike me. I own 3 macs. Surprised?
"I'm only posting this AC because I don't want to get into a back and forth with you."
Well yeah. If I posted your drivel I'd be too cowardly to attach my name to it too.
"You don't like some stuff, great, but man, in really seems you got your knickers in a bind over a non-released product."
"It is also using an OS not specifically written for low power devices. That doesn't mean that the device will be a failure but it sure indicates the unlikeliness of your claim. It's far from clear that battery life is the secret feature; everything suggests the opposite."
Just where in that do I say it "cannot run well"?
Perhaps you will learn reading comprehension when you get to high school.
"I was just giving you what evidence I have to suggest OS X has better power management than windows."
By making claims of its performance on an iBook? Since when did Windows ever run on an iBook? Since when was an iBook comparable hardware to PCs?
"However apple's estimate of the current release of his machine is twice as long as it was when he purchased his, so his experiences aren't really valid anymore."
Because Apple changed its estimates? Where do you think this doubling of battery life came from? Don't think too hard!
"There was a website at some point that listed the specs, I don't have it handy."
Apple has NEVER reveealed the source, type, or speed of the processor. You can't possibly know this and you are just quoting as fact some meaningless speculation from a fanboy like yourself.
"However assuming the iPhone's has a current generation mobile cpu, it will probably similar speed to my sister's G3 iMac*, which also runs OS X perfectly. * no, I haven't run bench tests on that either. Which is why I said "probably"."
Why do you make knowingly absurd speculation then footnote them where you admit they are such? PDA processors and desktop ones cannot be compared on clockspeed. As a PowerPC owner, I'd figure you'd "know" that by now considering Jobs marketed that message to you for years.
Considering that the iPhone relies on CoreImage and CoreImage uses GPU acceleration, how do you think this iPhone hardware that we know nothing about compares you your sister's G3 which you also don't know anything about? Have you used modern PDA/smartphone processors?
"According to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT), work began on OS X some time between 1984 and 1987 (based on skim reading the article)..."
It's good that you skimmed a wikipedia article! When was the first time you could buy OS X? BSD dates back earlier than 84 and Unix far before that. Considering Unix's age, why aren't you claiming that OS X is 45 years old? You are a moron.
"Certainly, some features like touch-screen are new, but others like check-spelling-as-you-type are ancient."
Hell, that proves it then. The question is, if OS X is over 20 years old, why did it take Apple until 1999 to release it and why did it suck so bad until the Panther release more than 4 years later?
To summarize your points, (a) OS X is over two decades old yet it is still the most advanced OS and offers the most advanced power management on the market, (b) iBooks are comparable in performance to modern PCs, (c) iBooks offer superior battery life without sacrificing performance, size, weight or function, and (d) iPhones have computing capability just as good as Macs. I think it can safely be said that you're a raging fanboy.
"The OS is the only difference I can think of, both mac notebooks and pc notebooks are using pretty much the same hardware..."
Not in the case of your iBook. Apple, and its users, are known to exaggerate their battery life just as they exaggerated the performance of PowerPC processors. Now that Apple uses Intel, battery life and processor performance are quite similar between Mac and PC.
"Unless you can give me an example proving otherwise, I'm going to continue believing that it's OS X vs Windows/Linux that makes mac notebooks have longer battery life."
I think you're going to do that regardless.;-)
"I don't have a mac-intel notebook to test windows on, but my iBook only gets 2 hours if I'm lucky under ubuntu, while it gets at a minimum 4 hours under OS X."
Lord knows you wouldn't want to test on relevant hardware before making your sweeping claims. I suppose that proves OS X for iPhone offers power management as good as other smartphones?
"The iPhone has a much faster CPU than the machines OS X was originally designed to run on (back in 1985)."
It does? Where are the specs for that? Have you run benchmarks? What does speed have to do with battery life? OS X existed in 1985?
"They won't have needed to do many optimizations at all to get OS X running beautifully on such "slow" hardware, which means they're working with code that has had over 20 years to mature."
I have no earthly idea what you are talking about, but OS X is nowhere near 20 years old with much of it relatively brand new. The iPhone's UI is entirely new and has never shipped in a product. The touchscreen hardware and the cellular radios are both brand new hardware to Apple and OS X.
Just what does it mean to run "beautifully" and how does that relate to power management? When OS X was first released in 1999 it didn't even run beautifully on even the newest Mac hardware of the time. I think you need to come out of your dreamworld now.
"Do you REALLY think that just because an OS wasn't designed for low power devices it cannot run well on low power devices?"
Did I say that?
"Most OS kernel designs are agnostic to things like this and if a proper power management mechanism is in place, makes this claim meaningless."
Proof please. Have you ever seen any such code?
"WindowsCE is technically using a variant of the NT fork, just like Vista."
Proof please. I would love to see that.
"And Windows Vista Embedded is Vista with features removed, just like OS X is on the iPhone. Get it?"
I know nothing of Vista Embedded but that's your example, not mine. Yes, I know what OS X for iPhone is. It is an OS not specifically written for low power devices, like I said.
Yes, I do believe that an OS specifically written for low power devices can have power management advantages over one that isn't. That seems incredibly obvious except to fanboys.
I believe that size and weight DO matter to prospective buyers of the iPhone. I believe that fanboys will take it as gospel that whatever the size is will be exactly what it should be. The iPhone is nicely proportioned though. Hopefully the battery life will be adequate.
No, what you are doing now is damage control. Spin this thread anyway you like, but it was your mistake not mine. I had no problem getting it right even as I was reading the same ridiculous speculation you were.
Odd that someone would offer righteous indignation as a response to being 100% wrong.
"So it looks like WiFi is the main thing you're taking issue with."
Who says I was taking issue with any of it? I merely gave examples of comments you had made, based solely on your most recent history, that would indicate your fanboy tendencies. I am not arguing points.
To paraphrase, those were (1) adulation of Jobs, (2) sensitivity to iPhone criticism, (3) arguing based on future features, and (4) stating unknown capabilities as fact.
"Would you agree that it would be absolutely ridiculous for WiFi to not work whenever it's out of range of a tower, or, more commonly, its radio is turned off?"
Yes, but conceivable, easily achievable and precedent exists. As I said, T-mobile has done equally ridiculous things with WiFi. I have never said that I believe Apple *would* screw with WiFi, but the argument here isn't about the iPhone, it's about your willingness to state opinion as fact.
"That's why I said "should" and not "does"."
You go back and read the quotes again. You used "should" once, but in the context of stating the all features but voicemail should work. You were absolutely adamant about WiFi working.
"So we could assume that Apple wouldn't build barriers to the very thing it wants to do, if that ends up being the path it follows."
Why should we do such things? Companies make mistakes and their goals and business agreements are not always transparent. We should never assume what we know because of things we believe we know about a company. Considering that Apple, more than any company, is about the "total experience" I would expect them to be more likely to implement unreasonable lockouts to service. I don't think it would be wise with the iPhone but it could happen. They are, after all, locking out 3rd party development.
"... how does that make me a fanboy again?"
Because, if your point is that Apple could theoretically do anything then you are making no point at all. Anyone *could* theoretically do anything. Where would such a content-free observation from you possibly get its motivation? It's nice, though, that you and the editor get along so famously on such meaningless speculation even though he is wrong in what he adds. Apple could just as easily offer unlocked phones in the US if it wanted to and it may do so. We don't know the terms yet.
"Why is that even worth discussing, you ask?"
Indeed I would ask that. One sign of fanboyism is mental masturbation over the obvious. Apple could sell their phones unlocked. I hope they do; I do not want Cingular and already use T-mobile.
"There is NO BASIS for this belief; and in fact, it's almost certainly not true."
So then you state categorically that the opposite is true yet somehow that's OK?
"But the problem is that you seem to imply that any argument against it is on equal footing, like it's 50/50 that we don't know one way or the other."
Not at all. I think the whole locked-WiFi is ridiculous, but you started this thread claiming that you were being accused of fanboyism simply because you stood up for the "facts". I merely pointed out numerous examples where you have exaggerated the facts in taking a pro-Apple stance. I have never argued the relative merits of any of the details. Had you truly been dedicated to the "facts" you could have simply said that there was no basis to believe that WiFi would be locked. That isn't what you did.
"But when you look at what would have to be done...that is just utterly ridiculous..."
Not at all. Don't know if you're a programmer. I am one, I do embedded code, where something like this is up my alley, and this is a trivial thing to implement. No exec at Apple would hesitate on this implementation if that's what they wanted. Not saying I believe they have, but still...
"There is no reason, logical or otherwise, to believe that WiFi is locked to a contract."
That is true, but you couldn't leave it at that. Nothing you said sounded that reasonable.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't forget the monochrome screen and only RS-232 for communications.
Apple people will say anything rather than admit that Apple fucks up on occasion.
Well, we know it to the extent that Apple is presenting it in that manner. You could argue that we don't even know if there WILL be an iPhone since all we have is what Apple says.
I don't have any problem with speculation. I have a problem with a poster who slaps down speculation of others, claims to be the champion of facts, then offers his own speculation as fact. If he wants to discuss what is truly known, then his own imaginings deserve the same fate.
As an example, he had a cow when it was speculated that the iPhone didn't have a SIM slot. Then, when pictures indicating the likely location of a SIM slot surfaced, he announced that the device did, in fact, have a user-accessible SIM slot. He doesn't actually "know" it's user-accessible or that it's actually the SIM slot, he just makes assumptions into fact. Yesterday Apple released details of the iTunes activation and it is now believed that the SIM card is not changable. We don't know any of this until we can get one, but it is an example of his double standard.
I like iPhone speculation, what I don't like is obvious bias.
"So.. no, I never thought the iPod had excessive failures. Owned four iPods without a single failure. You and I, we have different definitions of perfect. My definition of perfect is "usable", because a feature or product that can't be used or is difficult to use is essentially useless."
That's a remarkably unusual experience with iPod failures, suspiciously unusual in fact. I don't see your "definition of "perfect" appearing in the dictionary any time soon, either. I guess if we can redefine words at our leisure then we will never be wrong.
"You value drag and drop; I value convenience. I liked (loved, really), that with the original iPod all I had to do was plug it in; no management, no organization, or file manipulation."
I never said I valued that, but if you think you did absolutely nothing other than plug it in then you are fooling yourself. Exaggeration is a hallmark of a fanboy.
"If you want to think of the iPod as an incremental improvement, you can."
I never said that, either. I acknowledged that the iPod could be considered that. I didn't express an opinion.
"I think a 10x, order of magnitude, increase in upload speed (USB1 vs Firewire) is huge and not incremental."
Oh boy, you are really reaching for something here. Firewire vs USB 1.0 download speeds hardly makes the iPod "hugely more accessible than it's predecessors". That's what you said. Why are you bullshitting like this?
"I think a 80x increase in storage (64mb to 5gb) in the same form factor is huge, and not incremental."
Now you're comparing the hard drive iPod to flash players at the time? How about comparing it to existing hard drive players? Oh yeah, because it offered far less storage AND battery life than those devices! Bullshitter...
"I think access speed increases (from CD->HD, HD->RAM, etc) the iPod implemented were huge..."
Now you're just making crap up. The iPod has absolutely nothing to do with any of that. You are technically illiterate.
"...they certainly impressed the world when everyone was used to the seek times of CDs, the UI of the Nomad Jukebox, etc."
Other than form factor and menu system, how did the iPod compete with the Nomad? Poorly as I recall. The Nomad offered the same "seek time" advantages as the iPod. Convenient how you dance around comparisons that don't support your world view.
"Not certainly all of Apple's competitors have been able to copy these features..."
You have that backwards. Apple copied these features from their competitors. Apple's distinction was the packaging and the scroll wheel (which they ripped off of video equipment). Once again, you've demonstrated your fanboyism.
"The reason Apple gets the bonus points (and marketshare) is they managed to tie it all together before everyone else could."
Once again, that's your opinion, one I don't share, and one not supported by any facts. There is nothing to "tie" together. The iPod was successful because it was stylish and marketed to the hip. It was not a big success until gen2 when Apple began supporting Windows.
"There were at least two HDD based MP3 players before the iPod, but they were 4x as big and 5x as heavy and 10x slower."
More lies. None where 4x bigger, 5x heavier OR 10x slower. The iPod was no speed demon and its hard drive was smaller and slower than its competition. You sure like to make facts up. Were you even born then?
"There were several flash based MP3 players before the iPod, but they had 1/10th the storage capacity and difficult to read screens."
Apple's first flash player was a piece of crap as well and its screen was REALLY hard to read.
"You can really believe whatever you want, but history, I think, will remember Apple for doing the MP3 player right, first."
Your history maybe. Of course, since you're free to define "right" just as you are "perfect", how can you be wrong?
"Unlike the Mac, Apple hasn't dropped the ball with the iPod, continually adding refinements, increasing it's user base, and dropping the price in a steady manner."
You got that totally backwards as well. The Mac has seen tremendous progress recently whereas the iPod just gets a shiny new facelift periodically.
"I'm curious what facts I get wrong, can you tell me?"
I listed them explicitly in my post. What part did you not understand?
"1) Failure rates for the iPod don't seem excessively high... compare to the red ring of death or scratched discs for the XBox 360, for example."
I suppose that depends on your definition of "excessively high". I'd say iPod failures are quite high even if you compare them to the XBox360. My personal failure rates on those devices are similar. iPods have crappy batteries and never turn off.
Nevertheless, the claim was that Apple makes "the iPod as perfect as they can". Perhaps by that you meant that Apple just can't make an iPod very well. I would agree with that. Everyone else understands what an on/off switch is. Funny that Apple figured that out with the shuffle.
"4) What reasons do you ascribe to their success?"
Apple is a boutique manufacturer---they market style over substance. When people buy into the style they are easily convinced of the substance even when it's not there. "do things right" is something Apple achieves at times but it's not what they are about.
"The iPod is hugely more accessible than it's predecessors, Rio Karma, Nomad Jukebox, Samsung Yepp, or even CD-based MP3 players."
I guess if "hugely" is a synonym for "incrementally". I'd say aspects of the iPod are better than the competition and others are not. For example, some Rio players allowed you to install music using the device as USB block storage. For those of us who don't like being tied to host software, that's superior to the iPod. Many of those other devices support more formats as well. Regardless, there is no way anyone could say the differences are "huge". That's nothing other than fanboy hyperbole.
"Compared to the modern Zen Micro, Microsoft Zune, or the iRiver Clix, I would say that the iPod is no simpler than any of the others... Then the issue boils down to momentum coupled with continuing refinements. iTunes and the iTunes Store continue to be lauded in the face of the Zune Marketplace, Amazon Unbox, Creative Soundstage, Sony Connect, etc."
How is this even remotely a defense for your preposterous original claims?
"Then the killer... is this something your parents can do? Your neice? Your next door neighbor?
That's Apple's secret. The iPod is accessible to everyone, not just geeks."
Funny how you make ridiculous claims, take offense to being called on them, then change your points to something far more reasonable. Yes, the iPod is comparable to other players and more desirable to many. Yes, iTunes is more mature and successful than it's competition. These are hardly the arguments of "perfect as it can be", "do it right", and "something your parents can do".
Sure, if you only want 200 SMS messages. On T-mobile, $20 gets you unlimited text and data. Here, you have to pay $40 for that. I guess these rates seem reasonable until you compare them to others, but if you think that unlimited SMS for a $20 upcharge is reasonable then you are crazy.
Too bad there's only 8GB for the video content then, eh?
8GB and 3.5" for $600. There's a lot better options than that.
"- Since one would presume the iPod functionality of the device still needs to work when the contract expires, there is probably going to be a fairly easy hack/workaround to use only the iPod functionality (e.g., perhaps just a file sitting somewhere, a la .AppleSetupDone)."
Why would one presume this, Dave? It's a cellphone, and some cellphones refuse to power on without a working SIM card. It appears the iPhone may be one of those. So much for being an iPod with cellular capabilities, eh?
"- It will be interesting to see whether AT&T will unlock the phone on request, as they do for other GSM phones (for international travel and prepaid SIMs), and if that is the case, how well other carriers' networks work with iPhone (obviously sans things like Visual Voicemail)."
Haven't you already declared as fact that all this will work, Dave? I seem to have had this conversation before.
"- Still no word on battery replacement specifics, but it seems safe to assume that iPhone is the same as iPod in this respect; namely, that it is sealed and that the battery isn't "user accessible", but that there will still be plenty of ways to replace the battery yourself or via third parties if you so choose (battery failure under warranty would be covered by the warranty)."
Why would this be safe to assume, Dave? Are you so embarrassed by an Apple product's shortcomings that you have to continually make up excuses and assumptions? Why can't you leave this just as it is? No user replacable battery.
"I'm going to be tracking this issue here."
Why would you bother doing that? I thought you weren't a fanboy? It's amazing your singular dedication to one product and one company for someone who only cares about the objective facts.
"WiFi via the browser will probably work fine as-is without a contract. Note: it is not certain that this is the case, but it seems likely."
Why does this seem likely? Why are you so motivated to make assumptions about how this device will work? Why can't you just say that we don't know until it ships? The iPhone is locked to AT&T services. That's how it is until we know otherwise.
"- Also remains to be seen how "hackable" the phone is in general. Here's to hoping."
Just come out and say it, Dave. The iPhone will be everyone's dream machine.
"Have you ever tried using an N-Gage ? Have you ever used one of the high-end Nokia 'smart' phones, like e.g. the new N95 ? They suck. The user interface is a mess, the phones are slow and unresponsive, the casing feels really cheap and plastic. And these are expensive phones.
Every high end phone on the market right now sucks ass. They are a pain to work with, they are slow, unstable and feel flimsy. The phone manufacturers are trying to beat the competition by rushing out new phones with all the newest features as soon as they can, with no regards to quality or user experience."
Yes they do! I wouldn't say every phone is flimsy, but the software on every single one of them sucks. Frankly, it's a sad state of affairs when Windows Mobile is best of breed but it honestly is. I've always felt that the real opportunity of the iPhone isn't in any of its features (which are questionable) but in the possibility that its software doesn't suck.
How is this "Insightful"? He makes judgement calls for an Åpple product and against a non-Apple product, he gets facts wrong and he glorifies a device that hasn't shipped yet.
1) Apple has not made the iPod as perfect as they can. Just look at the failure rates.
2) Sony managed to be "hip" long before Apple. They made the portable music player famous.
3) Yes it was.
4) That is a matter of personal opinion. My opinion is that it's for very different reasons.
Treos ARE targeted at "customers". They have certainly had such ads. They are well known for the ease of use of both their device and the sync software. Yes, syncing is just a matter of "plugging it in". Treo "invented" threaded SMS, a feature Apple ripped off for the iPhone. None of these things have even been proven in the market by the iPhone. BTW, I hate Treos.
Who knows if the iPhone is "something your parents can do". Mine certainly couldn't. Between a Treo and an iPhone, I don't know which they would manage better, but I know they wouldn't want either.
The iPod is accessible to everyone? That's real news. 6 months ago, I was told by an Apple employee that fully half of all Genius Bar hours are devoted to iPod issues and virtually all of those issues involve training. You grossly overestimate the accessibility of the iPod to the general public.
Frankly, none of this is "Insightful".
So, now that Apple's done it, it's suddenly important?
Since YouTube has never offered H.264 acccess before, no one has done it. Now that they do, potentially many can. Whether they will is a question of how desirable it is. Just because Apple is adding it doesn't mean it's worth a crap.
Which AJAX developers do you think suddenly developed an interest, the ones who don't have macs? Why do you think that would be?
Of the two or three people who have rushed out iPhone AJAX app prototypes, do you think any of them don't have macs? You think they all did it on PC Safari beta? Notice that all the demos are locked to Safari?
I do agree that, judging by how many sites don't work in Safari, there aren't many developers testing with it but I also think the few that are contain 100% of the iPhone AJAX interest. In fact, so far the interest is entirely within the diehard Apple base IMO. No one else would waste their time prototyping on an unknown platform with unknown capabilities and zero marketshare.
That's true. In fact, there isn't even a problem. More competition is good.
I use a mac and Safari is of absolutely no interest to me on any platform. If Apple wants to put effort into making Safari available on a PC I think that's great.
For the same reasons that Windows developers don't want to develop for other cellphone platforms. Cellphones are different from desktops. If they did want to develop for a cellphone platform, why would they want to develop for the iPhone? It is only one phone and it is proprietary and closed. There are several other established platforms that have actual marketshare. One of those, the one with the biggest 3rd party software community, offers tools that are familiar to them.
The only developers lusting after iPhone development in the beginning were mac developers. When it became clear that no SDK would be offered and this AJAX joke was taking its place, select AJAX developers suddenly took interest. You think those guys don't have macs? You think they were saying to themselves "if only there was Safari on my PC"?
If Safari on Windows is such a huge benefit to iPhone development, why didn't it occur to Jobs to even mention it during his introduction?
"So which is it now, everything I said was incorrect, or only you couldn't find kernel design references that were used in WinCE that came from NT, so you are going to pretend that is the only point you have contention with because you found out the other information I supplied was correct?"
It is none of that. You chose to argue with me, not the other way around. I'll point out that you offered nothing that actually contested my points. All you did was put words in my mouth.
"MS originally planned on using a variation of the kernel design of the Win3.1 or Win95 architecture, but when they found they could use a modified form of the NT kernel technologies without doing the client/server kernel design of NT(i.e. pushing the API interfaces to related to an agnostic kernel and embed the APIs needed for the WinCE platform), it would meet their minimalist memory requirements and offer features needed for terminal type computing devices, like true pre-emptive and near real-time performance."
So you now admit you were lying when you claimed "WindowsCE is technically using a variant of the NT fork, just like Vista."
In reality, they only share design similarities. All this in response to my claim that "It is also using an OS not specifically written for low power devices." An absolute truism I will add.
"I'm not here to argue WinCE is the NT kernel..."
It's a good thing now that you've admitted it isn't. Why didn't you do that in the first place?
"WinCE was designed specifically to fit into low MEMORY footprint devices, it was not designed for low power or any other claim you seem to be making."
"...its basis was the NT kernel and it ALSO was NOT SPECIFCIALLY designed for power usage any more than NT was, which was my main and original point. It was designed to fit in a small memory footprint and was used for small 'terminal' type computing originally, not Mobile or PDA technology."
Small memory footprint and low power go together and somewhat interrelate. It is, however, irrelevant since WinCE is your example, not mine. There are other OSes specifically designed for these types of devices and they emphasize both low power and low memory footprint since those are characteristics of such devices. It is a fact that MacOS was not designed with low power devices in mind. It is also true that it was not designed specifically for low memory footprint, although what that means changes with time. Talk WinCE all you want...all you are doing is redirecting an argument YOU started into something you hope you can win.
Incidently, my OS X point was not criticism of the iPhone, it was a direct counter-argument to the absurd, fanboyish suggestion that "battery life was a secret feature of the iPhone". I never said it was an iPhone weakness or that it couldn't work well. Those were your mistakes.
"As I mentioned at the begining, you seem to focus only the credibility of WinCE, but you no longer are arguing about Windows Embedded XP/Vista. Why is that?"
Really? Just who introduced WinCE and Embedded XP/Vista into the conversation? I could give a shit and never mentioned any og those things.
"I actually think that no matter what I say, you are going to try to dismiss whatever crack you think you can get water into. So with that in mind I realize you are proud of your ignorance and determined to keep it.
Good Day..."
Indeed! You are so kind and friendly.
Now, why don't you go back and read my post which, while factually correct and not disparaging of the iPhone/OS X in any way, motivated an unjustified response from you, then stick your WinCE arguments up your ass?
That what this entire article and the one it linked to are about!!! He didn't have to catch it, that's all there is.
/.
The problem is all the apologists who've decided without reason that Safari is only made available for iPhone testing. I sincerely doubt there are developers chomping at the bit to write iPhone AJAX apps that don't have a mac. Typical
Windows isn't a browser, Safari isn't superior to IE, and the Mozilla CEO specifically said he wasn't concerned with Firefox marketshare. Thanks for trying so hard to get the details correct.
"I assume you can find wikipedia.com or microsoft.com, so go do your own freaking homework.
It is not my responsibility that you are this stupid and unwilling to educate yourself."
This coming from someone who thinks WindowsCE is a variant of Windows. It's the responsibility of those making idiotic statements to back them up. I knew you couldn't.
"BTW, yes I and a lot of other people on SlashDot have seen a lot of OS kernel code, from Linux to even NT core code, and especially MACH with a BSD interface, which is what OS X is. Do you also not realize that many of us have seen and worked with Darwin specifically?"
I realize that there are people here who DO do that, but you aren't one of them.
"Even just questioning the accuracy of the Windows Embedded or WindowsCE/Pocket PC example I gave you is an immediate red flag that you are more stupid than anyone would have expected even on SlashDot."
That's because it's blatantly incorrect. WindowsCE/PocketPC (not that they've been called that for a long time) were independent products from Windows. They were not derivatives.
"I apologize for responding to your post, I assumed you might care or have a clue of what you were talking about. It is obvious you don't."
Surely you can bluff better than this. If you're going to call me stupid, perhaps you should check your facts first. Meanwhile, keep dreaming you're a Darwin programmer. Maybe someday after you reach puberty you might understand what that means.
"If you mean CPU power..."
No I didn't mean that and it's obvious from the context that I couldn't have possibly meant that. Thanks, though, for making a point that can't be disputed.
"Funnily enough, this iphone is a much more powerful workstation than the machines that OS was designed for."
Bullshit. You think CoreImage was designed for a 68030 class machine? Considering that we know nothing of the iPhone's hardware capability, your statement couldn't possibly be right regardless of what OS X was "designed for". You realize that capabilities of OS X that are being touted in the iPhone are brand new?
What is with you fanboys trying to talk up the iPhone's hardware capabilities when nothing has ever been documented?
It's all irrelevant. I was responding to a battery life comment and my point about OS X and what is designed for has only to do with battery life. I never commented on its performance or capability.
It is a fact that every other PDA/smartphone OS platform has specific design details tailored to very low power and small memory footprint. It is unlikely, though possible, that OS X has received such changes since porting large libraries and sharing large portions of OS code is incompatible with that. Anyone who think Windows Mobile is Windows with a few pieces trimmed off is sadly mistaken. WM, Symbian, and PalmOS are written exclusively for ultra-low power devices and OS X is not.
So you are attacking me personally now? Is that the best you can do?
Every manufacturer makes up battery life claims. Apple doesn't just do that, they've refined bullet-point lying to a fine art. They've even changed their battery life estimates on the iPhone before first ship, and let's not forget their desktop "supercomputer" Altivec lies. It's just par for the course.
"Yes, I own a MacBook. No, I'm not getting an iPhone."
Then you aren't unlike me. I own 3 macs. Surprised?
"I'm only posting this AC because I don't want to get into a back and forth with you."
Well yeah. If I posted your drivel I'd be too cowardly to attach my name to it too.
"You don't like some stuff, great, but man, in really seems you got your knickers in a bind over a non-released product."
A little sensitive, fanboy?
Here's what I said, you anonymous retard:
"It is also using an OS not specifically written for low power devices. That doesn't mean that the device will be a failure but it sure indicates the unlikeliness of your claim. It's far from clear that battery life is the secret feature; everything suggests the opposite."
Just where in that do I say it "cannot run well"?
Perhaps you will learn reading comprehension when you get to high school.
"I was just giving you what evidence I have to suggest OS X has better power management than windows."
By making claims of its performance on an iBook? Since when did Windows ever run on an iBook? Since when was an iBook comparable hardware to PCs?
"However apple's estimate of the current release of his machine is twice as long as it was when he purchased his, so his experiences aren't really valid anymore."
Because Apple changed its estimates? Where do you think this doubling of battery life came from? Don't think too hard!
"There was a website at some point that listed the specs, I don't have it handy."
Apple has NEVER reveealed the source, type, or speed of the processor. You can't possibly know this and you are just quoting as fact some meaningless speculation from a fanboy like yourself.
"However assuming the iPhone's has a current generation mobile cpu, it will probably similar speed to my sister's G3 iMac*, which also runs OS X perfectly. * no, I haven't run bench tests on that either. Which is why I said "probably"."
Why do you make knowingly absurd speculation then footnote them where you admit they are such? PDA processors and desktop ones cannot be compared on clockspeed. As a PowerPC owner, I'd figure you'd "know" that by now considering Jobs marketed that message to you for years.
Considering that the iPhone relies on CoreImage and CoreImage uses GPU acceleration, how do you think this iPhone hardware that we know nothing about compares you your sister's G3 which you also don't know anything about? Have you used modern PDA/smartphone processors?
"According to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT), work began on OS X some time between 1984 and 1987 (based on skim reading the article)..."
It's good that you skimmed a wikipedia article! When was the first time you could buy OS X? BSD dates back earlier than 84 and Unix far before that. Considering Unix's age, why aren't you claiming that OS X is 45 years old? You are a moron.
"Certainly, some features like touch-screen are new, but others like check-spelling-as-you-type are ancient."
Hell, that proves it then. The question is, if OS X is over 20 years old, why did it take Apple until 1999 to release it and why did it suck so bad until the Panther release more than 4 years later?
To summarize your points, (a) OS X is over two decades old yet it is still the most advanced OS and offers the most advanced power management on the market, (b) iBooks are comparable in performance to modern PCs, (c) iBooks offer superior battery life without sacrificing performance, size, weight or function, and (d) iPhones have computing capability just as good as Macs. I think it can safely be said that you're a raging fanboy.
"The OS is the only difference I can think of, both mac notebooks and pc notebooks are using pretty much the same hardware..."
;-)
Not in the case of your iBook. Apple, and its users, are known to exaggerate their battery life just as they exaggerated the performance of PowerPC processors. Now that Apple uses Intel, battery life and processor performance are quite similar between Mac and PC.
"Unless you can give me an example proving otherwise, I'm going to continue believing that it's OS X vs Windows/Linux that makes mac notebooks have longer battery life."
I think you're going to do that regardless.
"I don't have a mac-intel notebook to test windows on, but my iBook only gets 2 hours if I'm lucky under ubuntu, while it gets at a minimum 4 hours under OS X."
Lord knows you wouldn't want to test on relevant hardware before making your sweeping claims. I suppose that proves OS X for iPhone offers power management as good as other smartphones?
"The iPhone has a much faster CPU than the machines OS X was originally designed to run on (back in 1985)."
It does? Where are the specs for that? Have you run benchmarks? What does speed have to do with battery life? OS X existed in 1985?
"They won't have needed to do many optimizations at all to get OS X running beautifully on such "slow" hardware, which means they're working with code that has had over 20 years to mature."
I have no earthly idea what you are talking about, but OS X is nowhere near 20 years old with much of it relatively brand new. The iPhone's UI is entirely new and has never shipped in a product. The touchscreen hardware and the cellular radios are both brand new hardware to Apple and OS X.
Just what does it mean to run "beautifully" and how does that relate to power management? When OS X was first released in 1999 it didn't even run beautifully on even the newest Mac hardware of the time. I think you need to come out of your dreamworld now.
"Do you REALLY think that just because an OS wasn't designed for low power devices it cannot run well on low power devices?"
Did I say that?
"Most OS kernel designs are agnostic to things like this and if a proper power management mechanism is in place, makes this claim meaningless."
Proof please. Have you ever seen any such code?
"WindowsCE is technically using a variant of the NT fork, just like Vista."
Proof please. I would love to see that.
"And Windows Vista Embedded is Vista with features removed, just like OS X is on the iPhone. Get it?"
I know nothing of Vista Embedded but that's your example, not mine. Yes, I know what OS X for iPhone is. It is an OS not specifically written for low power devices, like I said.
Yes, I do believe that an OS specifically written for low power devices can have power management advantages over one that isn't. That seems incredibly obvious except to fanboys.
I believe that size and weight DO matter to prospective buyers of the iPhone. I believe that fanboys will take it as gospel that whatever the size is will be exactly what it should be. The iPhone is nicely proportioned though. Hopefully the battery life will be adequate.
No, what you are doing now is damage control. Spin this thread anyway you like, but it was your mistake not mine. I had no problem getting it right even as I was reading the same ridiculous speculation you were.
Odd that someone would offer righteous indignation as a response to being 100% wrong.
"So it looks like WiFi is the main thing you're taking issue with."
Who says I was taking issue with any of it? I merely gave examples of comments you had made, based solely on your most recent history, that would indicate your fanboy tendencies. I am not arguing points.
To paraphrase, those were (1) adulation of Jobs, (2) sensitivity to iPhone criticism, (3) arguing based on future features, and (4) stating unknown capabilities as fact.
"Would you agree that it would be absolutely ridiculous for WiFi to not work whenever it's out of range of a tower, or, more commonly, its radio is turned off?"
Yes, but conceivable, easily achievable and precedent exists. As I said, T-mobile has done equally ridiculous things with WiFi. I have never said that I believe Apple *would* screw with WiFi, but the argument here isn't about the iPhone, it's about your willingness to state opinion as fact.
"That's why I said "should" and not "does"."
You go back and read the quotes again. You used "should" once, but in the context of stating the all features but voicemail should work. You were absolutely adamant about WiFi working.
"So we could assume that Apple wouldn't build barriers to the very thing it wants to do, if that ends up being the path it follows."
Why should we do such things? Companies make mistakes and their goals and business agreements are not always transparent. We should never assume what we know because of things we believe we know about a company. Considering that Apple, more than any company, is about the "total experience" I would expect them to be more likely to implement unreasonable lockouts to service. I don't think it would be wise with the iPhone but it could happen. They are, after all, locking out 3rd party development.
"... how does that make me a fanboy again?"
Because, if your point is that Apple could theoretically do anything then you are making no point at all. Anyone *could* theoretically do anything. Where would such a content-free observation from you possibly get its motivation? It's nice, though, that you and the editor get along so famously on such meaningless speculation even though he is wrong in what he adds. Apple could just as easily offer unlocked phones in the US if it wanted to and it may do so. We don't know the terms yet.
"Why is that even worth discussing, you ask?"
Indeed I would ask that. One sign of fanboyism is mental masturbation over the obvious. Apple could sell their phones unlocked. I hope they do; I do not want Cingular and already use T-mobile.
"There is NO BASIS for this belief; and in fact, it's almost certainly not true."
So then you state categorically that the opposite is true yet somehow that's OK?
"But the problem is that you seem to imply that any argument against it is on equal footing, like it's 50/50 that we don't know one way or the other."
Not at all. I think the whole locked-WiFi is ridiculous, but you started this thread claiming that you were being accused of fanboyism simply because you stood up for the "facts". I merely pointed out numerous examples where you have exaggerated the facts in taking a pro-Apple stance. I have never argued the relative merits of any of the details. Had you truly been dedicated to the "facts" you could have simply said that there was no basis to believe that WiFi would be locked. That isn't what you did.
"But when you look at what would have to be done...that is just utterly ridiculous..."
Not at all. Don't know if you're a programmer. I am one, I do embedded code, where something like this is up my alley, and this is a trivial thing to implement. No exec at Apple would hesitate on this implementation if that's what they wanted. Not saying I believe they have, but still...
"There is no reason, logical or otherwise, to believe that WiFi is locked to a contract."
That is true, but you couldn't leave it at that. Nothing you said sounded that reasonable.
"I am genuin