Nothing at all, and I agree. That said, I've gotten used to and pretty fast with the virtual keyboard. Standard conventions like arrow keys would be nice, though.
... for a change I don't disagree with you, Dan.:p
Is it just me, or has call quality on *ALL* mobile carriers in the US been going *down* in recent years rather than up as you'd expect it to?
Also, out of curiosity, did you jailbreak yours? I was going to wait until February until I got to the point that I just couldn't resist the allure of (fast) IM and Terminal (not to mention the NES emulator).
I like the pictures I take with my friend's Canon Digital Rebel much better, but that's unsurprising (I would hope). I also prefer not to carry a DSLR around with me -- and many times don't want to be bothered carrying a point-and-shoot around either.
Please tell me why anyone should want a PDA that does not include a cellphone.
The phone essentially "completes" the PDA functions. PDAs have contact lists, WiFi, email, and a host of other central-contact-database-organized functions which a phone module naturally complements.
You don't "suffer" from the inclusion of the phone. So why complain about it?
I'm still waiting for the phone that sounds and works like a phone.
Why does everyone say this as if it doesn't exist?
I suspect it is because they want their posts to sound as though they possess some real down-home 'Murrican wisdom. Jesus. HowmanycounterexamplesdoIhavetofind? All of these are "phones that look and act like phones."
Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?
Wrong! That's not an advantage, that's insane. At least, I can't remember the last time I was looking at my cellphone thinking, "Damn, I wish right now I could open up a Word document!", not even if one was attached to an e-mail.
Yesterday, when I got an email from my advisor. Thankfully, I had my iPhone at the ready and it was quite capable of opening the document. I was able to answer her question immediately and it made me look like I was really on top of things. I guess that makes me "insane."
... but in any case having to do with the cell phone industry in the United States, the overwhelmingly safe bet is always the pessimistic one when it comes to consumer rights and putting power in the hands of the consumer.
The industrial design is bad, there is no leadership and it will probably never get better. I hate it, but it's true.
Signs are not looking good for opportunities for the little guy to develop applications for the iPhone. This means open-source software goes out the window -- unless we continue to hack the thing.
OpenMoko and the 1973 will fail just as the Greenphone did. There is no leadership behind the project, no vision, just a bunch of well-intentioned geeks who want to make something cool. With no cohesive plan, though, the Neo1973 will never succeed.
iPhone is still "it" for those of us who want a powerful *NIX-based cellphone -- even if we have to fight Steve Jobs tooth and nail for it.
... should be fixing that root problem you mention. There is no reason everything should HAVE to run as root. There is, in fact, an otherwise-unused "mobile" user that you can run irssi as so you're not IRCing as root. If you can run console apps as an unprivileged user, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to run SpringBoard apps as an unprivileged user.
The people who hack their phones to run applications are highly visible. They are the people who show others all the awesome things it can do -- play Nintendo games, view PDFs on the phone, etc. -- and they are the ones who act like force multipliers for sales if they are happy with a product. They are the leading edge, and consumers follow.
If you want an open phone, there are several on the market or very close to market that will work MUCH better and the companies will support you in creating the apps.
There is nothing on the market that works better than the iPhone. The iPhone is the ONLY smartphone that has really gotten the equation right. It is touch-based, UNIX-based, incredibly flexible, and incredibly easy to use. Windows Mobile is still pen-based and crashy. Palm is dying, pen-based, and even crashier. Symbian is now a closed platform. OpenMoko will never get off the ground. There are no other extant Linux-based phones that allow any useful access to the OS (inclusive of the RAZR 2, which also has no WiFi). The gPhone will almost certainly not be a consumer-empowering platform. iPhone is it, boys and girls.
First of all, I am not at all an Apple fanboy. I am sixteen kinds of pissed the fuck off at "teh Steve" for locking down the iPhone and pursuing the lockdown even after claiming not to be interested in gimping the ability to write applications for the device. They even claim to be "eyeing the developer scene with great interest." Bull and shit. Right now they are acting like they hate innovation, hate the technical users that evangelize and promote their platform, and scoff at the geeks that MADE them in the first place. We'll see how long that lasts, but right now I am not happy with Apple one bit. The iPhone, on firmware 1.0.2, happens to be the best fit for what I need, but I will hold onto that software version until EOL of the device if I have to. There is nothing I can imagine they can give me that would actually get me to give up the BSD userland and real applications, not to mention the ability to develop in Cocoa, that I have on it now.
Second, it is not multi-touch that I want for the sake of multi-touch. What I want is the capacitive rather than resistive touchscreen that is more responsive to gentler input. It is a lot easier to use a capacitive touchscreen on a phone-type device. Multi-touch is great for gaming and zooming in and out, but really what I am concerned about is the suitability of the technology to the application.
I am not trolling. I honestly don't believe OpenMoko or the Neo1973 will go anywhere at all without carrier support, and they won't get carrier support while they're as powerful as they are.
OpenMoko is crap. The UI is horrid and shows no signs of getting better, development has no direction and never will, the hardware is an order of magnitude crappier than iPhone's (no capacitive multitouch touchscreen, no WiFi, no 2.5G or 3G WAN).
Someone with vision needs to take over OpenMoko, or it will never manage to drive any kind of change in the cell phone market. The biggest problem is that selling a carrier on a device that puts as much power in the hands of the consumer as something like OpenMoko would LIKE to do is next to impossible: witness Apple's lockdown of the iPhone. If it weren't for the application lock we would have an incredibly powerful device on our hands (mine is jailbroken and will remain on the 1.0.2 firmware until EOL of the device if necessary), but Apple and AT&T couldn't have that, could they?
Slashdot Mirror
Okay. So what about the myriad of LISP scripts that are packaged WITH and part of emacs? Guess those don't count?
Nothing at all, and I agree. That said, I've gotten used to and pretty fast with the virtual keyboard. Standard conventions like arrow keys would be nice, though.
Please explain why the inclusion of the camera makes the phone part of the device "worse." It adds a negligible amount of volume and mass to it.
Also, cell phone cameras are useful for recording random things that don't really warrant carrying a "real" camera around.
So what? You shut the other bits off. Problem solved.
How does the presence of extra features DETRACT from the phone's performance as a phone?
... for a change I don't disagree with you, Dan. :p
Is it just me, or has call quality on *ALL* mobile carriers in the US been going *down* in recent years rather than up as you'd expect it to?
Also, out of curiosity, did you jailbreak yours? I was going to wait until February until I got to the point that I just couldn't resist the allure of (fast) IM and Terminal (not to mention the NES emulator).
What philosophy, pray tell, is behind emacs, which, you know, no one uses.
Who here really takes serious pictures with their cellphone and/or uses their phone as their primary mp3 player?
And from the comments here, I'm not alone, either.
Also, why do they need to be "serious" pictures?
Yes?
I like the pictures I take with my friend's Canon Digital Rebel much better, but that's unsurprising (I would hope). I also prefer not to carry a DSLR around with me -- and many times don't want to be bothered carrying a point-and-shoot around either.
n/t
Please tell me why anyone should want a PDA that does not include a cellphone.
The phone essentially "completes" the PDA functions. PDAs have contact lists, WiFi, email, and a host of other central-contact-database-organized functions which a phone module naturally complements.
You don't "suffer" from the inclusion of the phone. So why complain about it?
I'm still waiting for the phone that sounds and works like a phone.
Why does everyone say this as if it doesn't exist?
I suspect it is because they want their posts to sound as though they possess some real down-home 'Murrican wisdom. Jesus. How many counterexamples do I have to find? All of these are "phones that look and act like phones."
Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?
Wrong! That's not an advantage, that's insane. At least, I can't remember the last time I was looking at my cellphone thinking, "Damn, I wish right now I could open up a Word document!", not even if one was attached to an e-mail.
Yesterday, when I got an email from my advisor. Thankfully, I had my iPhone at the ready and it was quite capable of opening the document. I was able to answer her question immediately and it made me look like I was really on top of things. I guess that makes me "insane."
Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas!
... but in any case having to do with the cell phone industry in the United States, the overwhelmingly safe bet is always the pessimistic one when it comes to consumer rights and putting power in the hands of the consumer.
The industrial design is bad, there is no leadership and it will probably never get better. I hate it, but it's true.
Signs are not looking good for opportunities for the little guy to develop applications for the iPhone. This means open-source software goes out the window -- unless we continue to hack the thing.
OpenMoko and the 1973 will fail just as the Greenphone did. There is no leadership behind the project, no vision, just a bunch of well-intentioned geeks who want to make something cool. With no cohesive plan, though, the Neo1973 will never succeed.
iPhone is still "it" for those of us who want a powerful *NIX-based cellphone -- even if we have to fight Steve Jobs tooth and nail for it.
... should be fixing that root problem you mention. There is no reason everything should HAVE to run as root. There is, in fact, an otherwise-unused "mobile" user that you can run irssi as so you're not IRCing as root. If you can run console apps as an unprivileged user, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to run SpringBoard apps as an unprivileged user.
The people who hack their phones to run applications are highly visible. They are the people who show others all the awesome things it can do -- play Nintendo games, view PDFs on the phone, etc. -- and they are the ones who act like force multipliers for sales if they are happy with a product. They are the leading edge, and consumers follow.
If you want an open phone, there are several on the market or very close to market that will work MUCH better and the companies will support you in creating the apps.
There is nothing on the market that works better than the iPhone. The iPhone is the ONLY smartphone that has really gotten the equation right. It is touch-based, UNIX-based, incredibly flexible, and incredibly easy to use. Windows Mobile is still pen-based and crashy. Palm is dying, pen-based, and even crashier. Symbian is now a closed platform. OpenMoko will never get off the ground. There are no other extant Linux-based phones that allow any useful access to the OS (inclusive of the RAZR 2, which also has no WiFi). The gPhone will almost certainly not be a consumer-empowering platform. iPhone is it, boys and girls.
They are under no such obligation to keep the iPod touch locked up tighter than a virgin. Yet they do anyway.
Not even EDGE?
First of all, I am not at all an Apple fanboy. I am sixteen kinds of pissed the fuck off at "teh Steve" for locking down the iPhone and pursuing the lockdown even after claiming not to be interested in gimping the ability to write applications for the device. They even claim to be "eyeing the developer scene with great interest." Bull and shit. Right now they are acting like they hate innovation, hate the technical users that evangelize and promote their platform, and scoff at the geeks that MADE them in the first place. We'll see how long that lasts, but right now I am not happy with Apple one bit. The iPhone, on firmware 1.0.2, happens to be the best fit for what I need, but I will hold onto that software version until EOL of the device if I have to. There is nothing I can imagine they can give me that would actually get me to give up the BSD userland and real applications, not to mention the ability to develop in Cocoa, that I have on it now.
Second, it is not multi-touch that I want for the sake of multi-touch. What I want is the capacitive rather than resistive touchscreen that is more responsive to gentler input. It is a lot easier to use a capacitive touchscreen on a phone-type device. Multi-touch is great for gaming and zooming in and out, but really what I am concerned about is the suitability of the technology to the application.
I am not trolling. I honestly don't believe OpenMoko or the Neo1973 will go anywhere at all without carrier support, and they won't get carrier support while they're as powerful as they are.
OpenMoko is crap. The UI is horrid and shows no signs of getting better, development has no direction and never will, the hardware is an order of magnitude crappier than iPhone's (no capacitive multitouch touchscreen, no WiFi, no 2.5G or 3G WAN).
Someone with vision needs to take over OpenMoko, or it will never manage to drive any kind of change in the cell phone market. The biggest problem is that selling a carrier on a device that puts as much power in the hands of the consumer as something like OpenMoko would LIKE to do is next to impossible: witness Apple's lockdown of the iPhone. If it weren't for the application lock we would have an incredibly powerful device on our hands (mine is jailbroken and will remain on the 1.0.2 firmware until EOL of the device if necessary), but Apple and AT&T couldn't have that, could they?
If you were one of those people, you would have had to wait for perhaps two years before you could have purchased a phone had Apple gone "rogue".
Why? AT&T couldn't care less if you switch phones. The iPhone is unsubsidized, remember?
Uh, did you miss the part about AT&T customers getting access w/o waiting for plans to expire,
Why should this be a problem in the first place?
users getting better data service terms,
Barely. And not really, since you cannot use 3G internet with the iPhone plan.
You've "got me" on Visual Voicemail. Congratulations.
cheaper music and ringtones through iTunes,
Oh, yes. It's simply wonderful for consumers to be charged twice for every ringtone they buy -- three times if they've ripped a song from a CD.
AT&T screw with the phone's interface,
Pardon my Swahili, but who gives a shit? You really think AT&T didn't get to sign off on everything Apple did with this thing?