than "local web pages." You need an entire CGI infrastructure to make local AJAX applications work (c.f. the "Google Gears" project).
I would assume it would not support this because a) GOOGLE has yet to get it working and b) If it was possible, Steve would have been talking it up at WWDC.
I assume this is Daniel Eran from RD posting, if so, good to talk to you again -- I've posted a couple comments on your blog that you've responded to and emails that you've also responded to. Let me make one thing absolutely clear -- I am not a knee-jerk Apple hater; quite the contrary -- I own a Macbook Pro which I ADORE and an eMac I rescued from my university's trash heap.
The thing that keeps galling me about the iPhone is the "could-have-beens." People have been speculating about and hoping for some kind of "pocket Mac" or "new Newton" for years, on the assertion that a machine like this running OSX would have all kinds of possibilities. Now, here we have just such a machine, and Apple is telling us that instead of being a powerful tool, it's going to be a shiny toy, and we'll like it that way. Despite the fact that there is nothing but software in the way of the iPhone's potential. It is enormously frustrating. As someone who considers himself at least on the level of "power user," it frustrated me when I heard there would be no SDK, but it really felt like a slap in the face when Steve Jobs had the balls to get up on the stage at WWDC and pretend that AJAX was something new and uniquely Apple.
I'm sure the iPhone will be a stunning success, but I have a feeling we'll still be sitting here waiting for Apple to rescue us from Windows Mobile for a long, long time.
If you reload the same software and it happens again and again, guess what? You're an idiot and at some point you stop receiving support for that problem.
If the iPhone performs beautifully out of the box, and you install something on it and it starts crashing, it's not hard to figure out why it's crashing, is it?
Besides, if other posters are correct in saying that most users DON'T install new applications on their devices (which I still don't buy, but for the sake of argument), then how can this ever be a problem? The people who do install things in the first place are going to be the most technical and the easiest to walk through a troubleshooting process.
This is not rocket science. Customer support is an art that has been practiced for decades. The standard reply can even be "press the software reload button in iTunes." Presto -- fixed.
that people are interested in Treos or WM phones precisely BECAUSE they can customize them as they will and install software like games and productivity applications onto them.
And the hackers would have released hundreds of "Applications" for the iPhone that bricked it.
From what orifice did you pluck this phantom boogeyman? There are about 12 applications on my Cingular 8525 and none of those "bricked it." There is a huge market of 3rd party applications for Palm and WM and none of those brick phones. Get real.
But an SDK not being a "special interest feature"? Come on, you know 99% of phone buyers are not going to be developing thier own applications.
The SDK is not for the 99% of phone buyers. It is for the 1% of people who know how to use it. That way that 99% of phone buyers has other applications to use on their phones.
and totally irrelevant. Thanks for playing, though.
Actually, my favorite complaint is when people whine about how their cell phones have taken over their lives. There is one incredible feature all cell phones share: THE POWER SWITCH.
And what phantom dev kit are these phantom developers going to write their phantom apps with?
Even if someone found a way to transfer unsigned binaries to the iPhone and even if they could find a way to get the iPhone to run them, how are they going to produce software that works with the UI? We have NO IDEA how Apple has changed or hasn't changed the API of OSX for the iPhone. It could just be "remove a lot of stuff and then recompile for an ARM target," or it could be "remove and CHANGE almost EVERYTHING, then compile for ARM" or anything in-between.
There will be no real apps to speak of. Mark my words.
What Samsung Windows Mobile device do you have? What do you want to know how to do on it? I'll explain it to you.
It costs MORE than $499? My Cingular 8525, which I suspect is better-featured than your Samsung device, ran me $430.
The ONLY undesirable thing about WM on smartphones right now is that their UI is still stuck in the stylus era. Once Microsoft wakes up and comes out with a standardized fingertip interface, if Apple insists on keeping the iPhone's API closed, MS will trundle right over them and relegate the iPhone to the world of the Newton.
Apple could have killed about 20 birds with one stone if they had polished their internal SDK up a bit and released it with the iPhone. Instead they chose to massively insult their developer crowd at WWDC by passing off AJAX as a "sweet solution." What happens to their "sweet solution" when there is no network available?
Ballmer may be a whackjob, but he's right about four things: "Developers, developers, developers, developers." Without those, your "smart" product looks pretty dumb.
What is the upshot of all this? A closed box with fancy tricks is not worth $499. An open box with OSX running underneath it that can run a Skype client (appealing to personal users), a variety of media players (appealing to personal users), games that actually make use of the hardware (appealing to personal users) and other things we haven't even thought of yet *IS* worth $499.
It's going to be very difficult to prove any kind of harm (which is what is required for a lawsuit -- you are suing for compensation for damages, after all) from any of this. You make yourself a giant target, Alex, and when people take potshots at you, you respond with a flight of twelve ICBMs and make yourself look absolutely crazy in the process. Any lawyer who reads all of the rants you've written is going to conclude that he cannot advocate your case -- and he WILL have to do that, if you're actually going to sue JR, JL, and whoever Evil Merlin is.
You have a history that is larger than just the WITPro article, Slashdot and OSY. You know this. Any competent defense attorney is going to assemble a titanic mass of evidence against your character and demolish your credibility, possibly setting himself up for a juicy countersuit (for time lost and wages lost) in the process.
I really wish you would just drop this crusade of yours, for your own sake, and go join a Buddhist monastery for a few years or something and just cool off. The fact that you've actually gotten the police involved alarms me, because it tells me you're taking this smoke and mirrors game and trying to turn it real life. I think you stand a good chance of seriously damaging your own life in the process.
When I was a phone support guy for photo labs a while back, the way the call center worked was customers would call in, explain their problem to an administrator, and then we would call the customer back based on whether or not we knew how to handle their issue, usually within about 15 minutes.
I learned very, very quickly never to take any calls whose business names included the words "Happy, Lucky, Golden, Phoenix, or Dragon," because without fail, I could never understand a damn thing they were saying. Thankfully, we had two guys on the team who spoke Chinese, so those calls still got taken.
How is "No SDK Required" NOT Apple's usual spin on the truth, which is "there is no SDK and we're not giving one to you."
Bet you five bucks we never have a native SDK for this thing. The great thing about being a pessimist when it comes to where business interests intersect technology development is that 90% of the time, you're very likely to be right.
I've had 4 different Pocket PC / Windows Mobile devices and none of them have ever had the problem you describe (although, as I understand it, the Q had quality control problems).
Your Q is also not my TYTN. HTC has an excellent reputation for building solid, full-featured smartphones. And let's be perfectly honest here: Windows CE is an EXCELLENT, highly stable, high-performance (for the hardware you put it on) operating system. The kernel is rock-solid and real-time out of the box.
WM5 is a great *underlying* OS. The *UI* is a steaming turd, for the most part, as far as I'm concerned.
In my opinion, the iPhone's UI does not make up for all the things you CANNOT do with it.
I know I don't actually have to explain this to you because you're trolling, but for anyone else reading: it's a lot less about ls -G and a lot more about VLC, VNC, ssh, and other useful applications that are impossible with Jobs' "sweet solution."
I too have Cingular. However, I have an HTC TYTN (branded as the Cingular 8525). It has Windows Mobile 5, no application lockdowns, no software lockdowns of any kind (Bluetooth functions perfectly), I can even replace the firmware myself on it with a WM6 image if I want to. It has Bluetooth 2.0, a 2MP camera, a slideout keyboard, a miniSD slot... and WiFi. I have no data plan and am entirely happy that way. Skype works beautifully.
By all accounts, my TYTN is FAR AND AWAY more functional than the iPhone, yet costs precisely the same.
So we know Cingular allows these kinds of phones on their network. What the crap, Cingular?
I see it as an at-long-last replacement for the old Newton, with a phone in it.
This is precisely the same thing that I and millions of other Mac fans said when we heard of it. I mean, how could Apple pass up the opportunity to produce the first viable *NIX handheld that included telephony and all of Apple's great media software? The possibilities were endless, given the already extant, enormous library of Mac and GNU software out there. Then we heard about MultiTouch and the fact that it "has Cocoa," and everyone was thrilled.
Then the SDK news, and now this complete garbage about WiFi being disabled (not to mention needing to sign a new contract in order to even get one in the first place)?
Slashdot Mirror
than "local web pages." You need an entire CGI infrastructure to make local AJAX applications work (c.f. the "Google Gears" project).
I would assume it would not support this because a) GOOGLE has yet to get it working and b) If it was possible, Steve would have been talking it up at WWDC.
I assume this is Daniel Eran from RD posting, if so, good to talk to you again -- I've posted a couple comments on your blog that you've responded to and emails that you've also responded to. Let me make one thing absolutely clear -- I am not a knee-jerk Apple hater; quite the contrary -- I own a Macbook Pro which I ADORE and an eMac I rescued from my university's trash heap.
The thing that keeps galling me about the iPhone is the "could-have-beens." People have been speculating about and hoping for some kind of "pocket Mac" or "new Newton" for years, on the assertion that a machine like this running OSX would have all kinds of possibilities. Now, here we have just such a machine, and Apple is telling us that instead of being a powerful tool, it's going to be a shiny toy, and we'll like it that way. Despite the fact that there is nothing but software in the way of the iPhone's potential. It is enormously frustrating. As someone who considers himself at least on the level of "power user," it frustrated me when I heard there would be no SDK, but it really felt like a slap in the face when Steve Jobs had the balls to get up on the stage at WWDC and pretend that AJAX was something new and uniquely Apple.
I'm sure the iPhone will be a stunning success, but I have a feeling we'll still be sitting here waiting for Apple to rescue us from Windows Mobile for a long, long time.
If you reload the same software and it happens again and again, guess what? You're an idiot and at some point you stop receiving support for that problem.
If the iPhone performs beautifully out of the box, and you install something on it and it starts crashing, it's not hard to figure out why it's crashing, is it?
Besides, if other posters are correct in saying that most users DON'T install new applications on their devices (which I still don't buy, but for the sake of argument), then how can this ever be a problem? The people who do install things in the first place are going to be the most technical and the easiest to walk through a troubleshooting process.
This is not rocket science. Customer support is an art that has been practiced for decades. The standard reply can even be "press the software reload button in iTunes." Presto -- fixed.
is not better than the iPod. But a touch-optimized Windows Mobile will be better than this non-solution Apple have put on the iPhone.
Also, Dashboard widgets are really not good enough for the lion's share of useful applications a person might want to put on their phone.
that people are interested in Treos or WM phones precisely BECAUSE they can customize them as they will and install software like games and productivity applications onto them.
Otherwise, they might as well get a RAZR.
And the hackers would have released hundreds of "Applications" for the iPhone that bricked it.
From what orifice did you pluck this phantom boogeyman? There are about 12 applications on my Cingular 8525 and none of those "bricked it." There is a huge market of 3rd party applications for Palm and WM and none of those brick phones. Get real.
beer is more important to you than people.
But an SDK not being a "special interest feature"? Come on, you know 99% of phone buyers are not going to be developing thier own applications.
The SDK is not for the 99% of phone buyers. It is for the 1% of people who know how to use it. That way that 99% of phone buyers has other applications to use on their phones.
and totally irrelevant. Thanks for playing, though.
Actually, my favorite complaint is when people whine about how their cell phones have taken over their lives. There is one incredible feature all cell phones share: THE POWER SWITCH.
And what phantom dev kit are these phantom developers going to write their phantom apps with?
Even if someone found a way to transfer unsigned binaries to the iPhone and even if they could find a way to get the iPhone to run them, how are they going to produce software that works with the UI? We have NO IDEA how Apple has changed or hasn't changed the API of OSX for the iPhone. It could just be "remove a lot of stuff and then recompile for an ARM target," or it could be "remove and CHANGE almost EVERYTHING, then compile for ARM" or anything in-between.
There will be no real apps to speak of. Mark my words.
a whole new "standard" that doesn't work when there is no network present.
A lot of people seem to be missing this, probably because Steve glossed over it real fast at WWDC.
What Samsung Windows Mobile device do you have? What do you want to know how to do on it? I'll explain it to you.
It costs MORE than $499? My Cingular 8525, which I suspect is better-featured than your Samsung device, ran me $430.
The ONLY undesirable thing about WM on smartphones right now is that their UI is still stuck in the stylus era. Once Microsoft wakes up and comes out with a standardized fingertip interface, if Apple insists on keeping the iPhone's API closed, MS will trundle right over them and relegate the iPhone to the world of the Newton.
Who's "most people?" You and your friends?
I think you are missing the reason clubs and bars make so much money.
is not a "special interest feature."
Apple could have killed about 20 birds with one stone if they had polished their internal SDK up a bit and released it with the iPhone. Instead they chose to massively insult their developer crowd at WWDC by passing off AJAX as a "sweet solution." What happens to their "sweet solution" when there is no network available?
Ballmer may be a whackjob, but he's right about four things: "Developers, developers, developers, developers." Without those, your "smart" product looks pretty dumb.
What is the upshot of all this? A closed box with fancy tricks is not worth $499. An open box with OSX running underneath it that can run a Skype client (appealing to personal users), a variety of media players (appealing to personal users), games that actually make use of the hardware (appealing to personal users) and other things we haven't even thought of yet *IS* worth $499.
It's going to be very difficult to prove any kind of harm (which is what is required for a lawsuit -- you are suing for compensation for damages, after all) from any of this. You make yourself a giant target, Alex, and when people take potshots at you, you respond with a flight of twelve ICBMs and make yourself look absolutely crazy in the process. Any lawyer who reads all of the rants you've written is going to conclude that he cannot advocate your case -- and he WILL have to do that, if you're actually going to sue JR, JL, and whoever Evil Merlin is.
You have a history that is larger than just the WITPro article, Slashdot and OSY. You know this. Any competent defense attorney is going to assemble a titanic mass of evidence against your character and demolish your credibility, possibly setting himself up for a juicy countersuit (for time lost and wages lost) in the process.
I really wish you would just drop this crusade of yours, for your own sake, and go join a Buddhist monastery for a few years or something and just cool off. The fact that you've actually gotten the police involved alarms me, because it tells me you're taking this smoke and mirrors game and trying to turn it real life. I think you stand a good chance of seriously damaging your own life in the process.
Watch out, APK! You're killing your e-stalking case!
When I was a phone support guy for photo labs a while back, the way the call center worked was customers would call in, explain their problem to an administrator, and then we would call the customer back based on whether or not we knew how to handle their issue, usually within about 15 minutes.
I learned very, very quickly never to take any calls whose business names included the words "Happy, Lucky, Golden, Phoenix, or Dragon," because without fail, I could never understand a damn thing they were saying. Thankfully, we had two guys on the team who spoke Chinese, so those calls still got taken.
We wouldn't want to talk to people we can't understand and who have no knowledge of the product they are supporting.
How is "No SDK Required" NOT Apple's usual spin on the truth, which is "there is no SDK and we're not giving one to you."
Bet you five bucks we never have a native SDK for this thing. The great thing about being a pessimist when it comes to where business interests intersect technology development is that 90% of the time, you're very likely to be right.
Did you miss it?
It was called the WWDC keynote.
I've had 4 different Pocket PC / Windows Mobile devices and none of them have ever had the problem you describe (although, as I understand it, the Q had quality control problems).
Your Q is also not my TYTN. HTC has an excellent reputation for building solid, full-featured smartphones. And let's be perfectly honest here: Windows CE is an EXCELLENT, highly stable, high-performance (for the hardware you put it on) operating system. The kernel is rock-solid and real-time out of the box.
WM5 is a great *underlying* OS. The *UI* is a steaming turd, for the most part, as far as I'm concerned.
In my opinion, the iPhone's UI does not make up for all the things you CANNOT do with it.
AT&T/Cingular's paranoia combined with Apple's pathological need for control.
jackass.
I know I don't actually have to explain this to you because you're trolling, but for anyone else reading: it's a lot less about ls -G and a lot more about VLC, VNC, ssh, and other useful applications that are impossible with Jobs' "sweet solution."
I too have Cingular. However, I have an HTC TYTN (branded as the Cingular 8525). It has Windows Mobile 5, no application lockdowns, no software lockdowns of any kind (Bluetooth functions perfectly), I can even replace the firmware myself on it with a WM6 image if I want to. It has Bluetooth 2.0, a 2MP camera, a slideout keyboard, a miniSD slot... and WiFi. I have no data plan and am entirely happy that way. Skype works beautifully.
By all accounts, my TYTN is FAR AND AWAY more functional than the iPhone, yet costs precisely the same.
So we know Cingular allows these kinds of phones on their network. What the crap, Cingular?
Trust me, it's not that fast. I was in Chicago using it and I think I got speeds comparable to a heavily-loaded DSL connection.
I see it as an at-long-last replacement for the old Newton, with a phone in it.
This is precisely the same thing that I and millions of other Mac fans said when we heard of it. I mean, how could Apple pass up the opportunity to produce the first viable *NIX handheld that included telephony and all of Apple's great media software? The possibilities were endless, given the already extant, enormous library of Mac and GNU software out there. Then we heard about MultiTouch and the fact that it "has Cocoa," and everyone was thrilled.
Then the SDK news, and now this complete garbage about WiFi being disabled (not to mention needing to sign a new contract in order to even get one in the first place)?
Fuck you too, Steve.