No, the problem is that you have no choice but to juggle because there is no RAM installed in the phones Windows Enthusiasts claim cost so much less than the iPhone. Add in a couple hundred bucks for SD cards (hopefully your phone supports greater than 2GB cards) and you end up with expensive hardware with segmented memory. How ironic! It's like the 80s playing over again, with people defending DOS and the 8086 and a 640K memory map and deriding the Mac because it was a "graphical toy." Who needs a 16 bit processor, 640k should be enough for anybody, etc.
--I can and do wirelessly stream mp3s
Well the iPhone can and does access the intarweb, and can stream anything you can play or watch on an iPod.
-- slide-out keyboard (which, bulk aside, is significantly faster and more accurate...
How is a keyboard "accurate"? Do you really think the iPhone keyboard introduces errors just because you've read the latest talking points? You should pick one up and actually play with it, not just hate it from a distance like Rob Enderle. It smartly figures out what keys you're most likely to hit next and enlarges their virtual targets. And when you spell something wrong, it automatically corrects in a way that isn't in the way. It's pretty smart. It's not a full sized laptop keyboard (which is why I'd like a Bluetooth keyboard for touch typing), but to suggest a thumb keyboard is better is just plain bologna.
I'm not saying you can't like WM, I'm just pained by people announcing that POS HTC-like phones "do everything the iPhone does, plus use an amazing software library!!" when no, they don't do the important things the iPhone does (if they did, we wouldn't be so impressed with the iPhone) and Windows Mobile software is all crap#. Sure its a platform with potential, but it's a crap platform with crap potential. The iPhone is trying to be something great, not just trying to monopolize a new market and make lots of money. WinCE has never aspired to do anything but kill Palm.
# I went over the top most popular Windows Mobile downloads from major sites, and quickly added up $115 of Windows Mobile software that solves problems that shouldn't exist, and another $334 worth of third party software that is bundled for free in the iPhone. That's $449 of popular crapware you don't need to buy on the iPhone: Mobile Disruption: Apple's iPhone and Third Party Software
And really, Microsoft has never really aspired to do anything but kill competitors. What truly great products has it ever delivered that weren't merely imitative? The company has a lock on the majority of the tech world, and what has it contributed? It hates the idea of contributing back, it has no respect for users or their rights (PlaysForSure DRM), it has been horrific to nearly every partner the company has worked with*, and... shoot, how much evidence does it take to point out this company shouldn't have fans?
I'm just blown away that people--who aren't getting paid to prattle about the company--have anything good to say about it. That's an irrational religion. People liking Apple's products because they're easy to use, functional, and fashionable is one thing, and people liking the freedom of GNU is another, but what's the attraction to serving as perpetual beta testers for Microsoft, a company that takes so much and gives so little?
The iPod handles proprietary free formats (MP3, AAC) The iPhone handles the same proprietary free formats.
The only insidious proprietary formats on recent music players have been Sony's ATRAC and Microsoft's Windows Mobile, and thank god both have been neutralized by the iPod
You argue many points, but I don't see where you are trying to go with it.
As I noted, Apple had never competed in audio books against Audible, so it partnered with it to use its DRM in that field. Similarly, it would make sense for Apple to partner with an established ebook vendor if it chose to enter that market with the iPod/iPhone. It's not yet obvious that Apple is even interested though.
In contrast, Real and Windows Media are direct competitors to Apple's QuickTime, and so Apple can't be expected to help them out. In particular, Apple has always been against DRM, as it doesn't serve Apple's interests. Steve Jobs' 2003 Rollingstone interview* conveyed the same ideas on DRM as his more recent "Thoughts on Music" that everyone lapped up as if it were some new change in position.
"When we first went to talk to these record companies -- you know, it was a while ago," Jobs said, "It took us 18 months. And at first we said: None of this technology that you're talking about's gonna work. We have Ph.D.'s here, that know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content."
Apple didn't want Microsoft's DRM infecting the planet, and its a damn good thing Apple had the balls to take on Goliath and cut its head off, or Microsoft would now own media in the same way it owns PC operating systems, PC productivity applications, and PC gaming. Why you are so quick to offer up your media playback freedoms to PlaysForSure just because Microsoft make it "easy to implement" is a puzzle.
Why should Microsoft, a company that has done more to restrict user freedom and hold back the progress of technology than any other in recent history, be given additional control of markets, particularly our culture? Apple's FairPlay established an alternative for commercial music to Windows Media, and has resulted in a real market opening for DRM-free music. Did you imagine that Microsoft was going to open up PlaysForSure after it reached 80% market share?
That's something for "Apple is the new Microsoft!!" Windows Enthusiasts to mull over: would the world be better off with a more cruel, criminal master without any taste, class, or real vision for good products? Because I'd say no.
Apple partnered with Audible, which uses its own DRM for audio books. What Apple hasn't done is licensed Real Media or Windows Mobile, as both directly compete against Apple in media playback.
So your example in worrying that Apple wouldn't support NIH DRM (I've never put those acronyms together before) isn't really well founded. If anything, it looks like WebKit is gaining support for a multiple page document container for a web archive format that could work as an open eBook system, with or without DRM (I haven't heard anything about DRM support in it).
Add in Google's book library, and WebKit's composite documents (or Leopard's Notes) could serve as a more open eBook container for readers.
The "two year contract" is for using the iPhone as a phone. A book reader can't place phone calls, so it doesn't exactly compete with the iPhone in that regard.
What I'd like to know is if the Kindle does the same "white to black to white flash" refresh as the Sony Reader. I have checked the Reader out a couple times, but that screen refresh on every page turn is absolutely a functionality killer. Who'd read a book that flashed on every page turn?
Nobody is comparing the Kindle to the iPhone overall; the idea is simply: does Kindle offer enough in display size and book reading specialization features to compare against a general purpose device like the iPhone, which can already display documents that are highly readable, as well as browse the web (something that can't be done by e-Ink displays) and view graphics in color. The iPhone also offers resolution independence that allows you to adjust the type size you prefer just by finger-zooming.
Remember that Tablet PCs sound like a good idea and deliver "features," but nobody buys them because they don't really do enough of anything you can't do with a regular laptop, and can't match a laptop's features, but they still cost a lot. That's a bad product niche to be in. If Kindle fits the same black hole next to a mobile device like the iPhone (which is a phone + a browser + and iPod: that's the reason its cited here apart from a regular mobile phone), then it will suffer the same fate as the Tablet PC. Sony's Reader doesn't exactly suggest a wild future for the Kindle, but it also doesn't do wireless.
If I'm riding the subway, I'm more likely to pull out an index sized iPhone and scroll through a document than pull out a significantly larger slate. Kindle is too big to fit in a pocket. Hence the idea of asking whether it is going to augment the iPhone or suffer the same fate as the Sony Reader.
I haven't looked at the Kindle in depth yet, but if it's a great product that would make reading more accessible, I'm all for it. I think $400 might be too high of an entry price, as it doesn't offer to replace a similarly priced phone (as does the iPhone), but rather the free nature of begin able to read books. Kindle isn't "$400 vs the $400 iPhone plus subscription fees," it's "$400 investment vs $0 reading physical books."
Even the $400 iPod replaced music players that cost $100-400. People who listen to the radio for free wouldn't have ran out to buy an iPod. I don't know of anyone who currently pays $100s for a device to read books, but most people who bought an iPod were accustomed to buying audio players at significant cost already.
So Kindle doesn't exactly face an easy rollout. Amazon also has no history at delivering hardware, and it looks like something that costs $24 at WalMart (in 1989), not a slick luxury item, but if anyone can market something to book readers, one would suspect it might be Amazon. It's also interesting that it can read newspapers, which perhaps offers more of an advantage in reading over using it to read regular books. Although again, I can read newspapers on the iPhone as they were meant to be displayed, and not just a few participating ones.
With customers like you, it's no wonder Palm is going out of business. I'm sure corporate America is desperately trying to deliver awesome products for people who only want to pay a "song" for hardware. Further, your irrational fear of AT&T service is hard to connect with your frugality because the iPhone's service plan is hundreds cheaper than any other smartphone plan.
Somehow I don't think Apple is missing out by your refusal to buy their products. The iPhone is the top selling smartphone model in the world (despite only really being sold in the US so far), and I don't think the foot stomping of a few angry holdouts is really going to turn the tide.
Have fun with your Palm. I really liked them in the late 90s, but they went nowhere and I began hating my Treo daily from about 2004 until I unplugged it and got an iPhone.
Your != You're. You dislike Apple because you are an irrational Windows Enthusiast with blinders on.
The iPhone is not "shiny," it's thin enough to fit in a pocket without looking like you have a boner. It also looks like a professionally designed device, rather than a cheap piece of shit pooped out by Chinese knockoff artists.
If you carry around additional batteries, you now get to look like you have two boners. Is that convenient for Windows Enthusiasts? iPod batteries cost about $15 for DIY service kits, so if the iPhone's battery doesn't last as long as you want to keep it before reselling it for far more than any WinCE phone has ever been sold, you'll pay the same ~$20 for a new battery kit. If you have to pay someone else $100 to replace your battery, then you can.
Yes, QVGA is tiny, but the screen size is similar. So your text looks like crap from five years ago, and the web looks like ass. That's more than a slight miss. It's a major flaw of you POS phone.
Carrying around flash cards is not a feature. You have 1/64th the RAM. You can't play a 2 GB movie from an SD card, nor can you load up with a lot of music, a movie, several TV programs, and still have lots of space for email. Having a tiny amount of Flash is not a feature. Shame on you for calling me the "fanboy" here. You're defending the idea that spending several extra hundred dollars on easy to lose, easy to wipe, problematic to juggle Flash cards is a "feature." That's bullshit.
What content would I want to play, H.263 Divx? Windows Monopoly Player? Why not take advantage of the latest H.264 hardware encoding rather than "enjoy the freedom" of using a bunch of inferior codecs? Apple only pushed its users to the latest thing for efficiency. QuickTime/iTunes/Handbrake can convert pretty much anything to H.264, where it plays optimally on everything from the Nano to the iPhone to Apple TV, as well as any other modern device. Why would I want to piss around with a bunch of old codecs or the latest DRM from Microsoft? There's nothing open about proprietary alternatives. I can get more free content in H.264, and I can encode my own stuff too.
Windows Media browsers have nothing on mobile Safari. It also does multiple pages/tabs (8) without eating up screen real estate to do it. You get far more viewable area, resolution independent zoom, and better bookmark integration + syncing with your desktop. You also get an RSS feed reader for mobile navigation, and can play back audio or video podcasts live, as well as media embedded in pages.
You can talk about "typos" because you've been trained to pull up the dittohead bullshit by your talking point wags, but you've obviously never used an iPhone, because within an hour you can type faster and more accurately than on a clumsy chicklet keyboard that can only be driven using thumbs. I'd like to be able to pair a Bluetooth keyboard to have mini laptop replacement, but you can hold onto you lameo slide out keyboard, as I'd rather have a phone half as thick than twice as lame.
Your Google Maps client is significantly inferior to the iPhones, which you'd know if you'd ever used both.
As I said, there are advantages you can claim on other phones, but usability and software superiority are not among them. The fact that you are making excuses for a dumpy piece of junk indicates it's not me who is the irrational fanboy.
Well we know for sure that the iPhone wasn't faked, plus it's a lot more useful to individuals than having a few people spend a week going a long ways to bring back sand. A million people didn't willingly pay $400-500 to get in on the moon landing.
Your HTC Herald/Atlas can do some things the iPhone can't do, but it actually can't do everything the iPhone can, so please stop saying this.
It can't look cool: it's twice as thick as the iPhone and looks cheap and plasticky. It can't deliver 8 hours of talk time. It can't run anything beyond Windows Mobile, which is a joke. It can't display more than 240x320 (that's the iPod resolution, not the iPhone resolution: 320x480) It can't store more than 128 MB Flash without juggling around SD cards, vs 8,192 MB of Flash on the iPhone (64 x as much) It can't navigate photos or music or menus like the iPhone's multitouch display, and its media apps are no match for the iPhone's. It can't play or download iTunes content and there's no integrated, free source for H.264 podcasts and other content. It can't display a functional view of the web with resolution independence. It can't display HTML emails in a real email client that works well. It can't do Visual Voicemail. It can't be navigated with a single button and screen taps. You have a half dozen buttons on the face alone. It can't be used with an onscreen keyboard, so you have to slide out a chicklet keyboard that is impossible to type upon. It can't use slick Google integration to pull up nearby searches and map them at all similar to the iPhone's Maps.
HTC can do some things an iPhone can't do, so if you want to brag things up, here's what to say:
You can edit spreadsheets and word documents within a QVGA display. You can use a variety of proprietary IM services, including Yahoo, AOL, and MSN. You can buy several hundred dollars of third party WM apps to match some of the features of the iPhone. You can access your Exchange Server calendar OTA. You can have your phone remotely terminated by your boss when he fires you.
What about albums shifting to MP3s? It seems like what's needed is a reliable, simple way to convert books into ebooks. Publishers seem to think they can charge $10 for an ebook, which seems too high. Pricing ebooks at around $5 and creating a volume market might help increase literacy too. Also, creating a format that makes it easy convert desktop documents + PDFs and use content in fair ways would also propel ebook adoption rather than burying it again as Sony's Reader did.
Seriously, wasn't anyone paying attention to what made the iPod work? It wasn't a DRM money train chugging from the iTunes Store, charging more than the price of CDs. It was a thoughtfully designed device with good integration and the ability to use people's existing content.
Part of the reason for bullshit legalese in EULAs and other warnings is to cover the asses of technology companies that are regularly sued over frivolous nuisance cases because people--and particularly Americans--reserve the right to be morons and expect companies to bail them out after doing moronic things.
By putting disclaimers in a long winded EULA, the consumer at least knows the extend to which the company may go. The alternative to an EULA claiming an agreement that allows a vendor to exchange and collect specific kinds of data would be either not having any clue of possibilities, or not having access to features that might outweigh potential issues.
Do you want the government controlling what services a vendor can offer? Do you want to have no warnings at all? It sounds like you want to have everything with no personal accountability and yet retail the rights to mount frivolous lawsuits over bullshit. Incidentally, that's also why you have to live in a world of bullshit legalese.
Since you can't use the iPhone without a service plan, you'd have to set up service in order to be put in the terrifying position of sending your mobile's address to Apple's servers to obtain information service updates.
There is no crisis involving second hand sales, because owning the hardware does not result in the panic and fretted about in the post. It's only reason for CONCERN if you sign up for service, at which time you have to walk through the EULA trapdoor yourself.
Concern is the new fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Most people with Grave Concerns love Apple and own all of its products. But lately, they've just been very, very concerned. Things don't add up, and its all very frightening. In most cases, the safest thing is to run back to Microsoft, where at least you know you're being spied upon every two weeks with Window Genuine Advantage. Nothing to worry about.
OS X isn't faster because Intel Macs have EFI firmware, it's faster largely because it loads services in parallel.
In early releases, it it displayed a progress bar during system loading, along with the name of the service that was loading. With Tiger (?) the progress bar was just a timer, and it stopped displaying the names of loaded services because there wasn't time, and because things were all loading concurrently. In Leopard, there is no progress bar. It just loads the window server and then it's up.
Microsoft can optimize resource loading and speed up the parsing of the Registry, but its not going to achieve OS X-like speed without major changes to the architecture of Windows. Given the reception to changes in Vista (say, driver model changes), that's going to be difficult to pull off. And "OS loading time" is among the least important of the problems to fix in Windows. Microsoft should start over and force a transition to a good OS before it loses its monopoly position. It's not like the company has loyal users to reply upon.
IIRC, 300 baud text was about as fast as you could read if you weren't trying hard.
It was also about $6/hour plus long distance (another ~$6/hour) if you were online from anywhere outside of major cities, making being on the Internet expensive for a teen of the late 80s. My parents made me pay my own bills too.
We do not have pure capitalism (any more than we have pure democracy) in the US, and few other countries really approach a system where money is the only thing that makes things happen.
Just as we have a representative democracy, we have a regulated capitalist economy. That means you can't say, "fine, you don't like aspects of the brutality of capitalism, well tell us how to replace it entirely!!!"
We need to constantly adjust how our economy works so we have the right mix of regulation (too much is a planned economy that we know is a failure, and too little is a slave labor state with old ladies thrown out into the street, a popular culture owned by mega corporations, and a population of humans that have no social security or health care; both extremes are bad).
What the OP was likely bringing up is that "capitalism" is frequently extolled as a golden god that does no wrong and should never be questioned or reformed or regulated in any way. That is clearly not true, the the OP is giving a real example of the ills of a "Capital Is Everything" system.
The alternative to brutal capitalism is not "communism," just because the Rupert Murdoch channel wants you to think so. It is possible to have a capitalist state with controls and regulations that assist the weak in our society and provide social services for everyone without resorting to a planned economy and a communist revolution that turns labor into an all singing all dancing peasant class.
In particular, the US is in no danger of falling to communism, but is already teetering on the brink of a corporatist state where the government exists primarily to enforce copyright law and dole out corporate welfare. That's fascism, and it's just as scary as communism.
Anyone who defends pure capitalism as a perfect system devised by Jeebus and refers to anyone seeking reform as leftists and commies has fallen to the right wing propaganda machine. The US needs to purge those people out of control just as Germany did after the war.
Warning! You are using talking points that have expired.
The talking point that the iPhone lacked a "real keyboard" and was unusable slow to use has ended. Nobody can be expected to believe this anymore.
The new talking point is that the iPhone's keyboard generates typos and is "not any faster" than phones with mini chicklet keys.
The differences are subtle, but please stick to the talking points you are given. There's no way we can fight the iPhone without your cooperation in chanting the same complaints incessantly. We have to keep the public constantly aware that Apple's product is a direct threat to everyone in the market, regardless of whether they choose to buy it or not.
The F in FUD isn't for "Fucking Around," so get your shit together soldier.
Also, NYT's Pogue and WSJ's Mossberg are both bending backwards in their attempts to look "fair," making limp complaints about Apple and trying to give garbage credit for not being on fire. Pogue reviewed the Palm Centro and danced with it like it was something other than the cheap piece of recycled shit it is, dressed up in childish candy reminiscent of the toilet seat iBooks from a half decade ago.
No review can make Windows Mobile look like less of a failure than it is. Microsoft didn't bother to use WinCE in the Xbox or in the UMPC, the very handheld PC application WinCE was supposed to be designed expressly for. Windows Mobile is simply an attempt to recycle failure, and it deserves to die. Google's Android just vacuumed away its remaining oxygen.
Actually France sued the iPod and forced Apple to release an iPod firmware version that limited the volume. I refuse to believe Americans haven't sued over similar "OMG I listed to volumes that were too loud and now I want money."
Rise of the iTunes Killers Myth After years of looking foolish for parading out model after model of embarrassing junk as the next iPod Killer, the seas of punditry have given up on finding an iPod Killer, and have instead sought to identify an iTunes Killer.
Isn't that the role of a market based economy to figure out? If consumers want basic phones, they'll buy them. If they want the ability to watch movies and take photos, they buy that.
Are you suggesting the government should decree what phones should be made available to the people? Perhaps a committee of experts could set standards of acceptable products.
Incidentally, the reason camera stores don't sell phones is also related to supply and demand.
Steve Jobs Ends iPhone SDK Panic Apple officially announced plans to release a software development kit for the iPhone and iPod Touch in February. That pulls the rug from under the harping wags who have tried to conflate Apple's security efforts with the persecution of third party developers.
Because the mobile network you're paying $1000 a year to use is only designed to provide minimal voice quality. Perhaps you should blame the provider, not the iPhone.
Of course, that's far less sensationalist and fashionable to complain about than whining that Apple delivered the future of mobile phones at a consumer price.
The Great Google gPhone Myth Pundits have seized upon rumors of a new mobile phone product from Google as their golden ticket for bashing the iPhone. The "gPhone" is the perfect foil for fear-based rumormongers because it's a secret Google han't said much about publicly. That lets the wags blow it out of proportion and stretch it into an iPhone Killer. They're wrong, here's why.
Like a moth to the flame, I am attracted to your flamboyant sparks.
Yes, the iPhone's design does relate a lot to being from Apple.
But no, Apple didn't "lock the phone," it opened up a standards-based web API that is in many respects better than anything on existing smartphones. The iPhone is also only 4 months old, and Apple has promised additional access in an SDK later this winter. Saying Apple locked the phone for development is ignorant. Saying Apple locked the phone to a single provider ignores the reality that all US phones are locked to one of two network technologies that inherently limits which provider you can chose.
Home activation through iTunes is a lot more consumer friendly than forcing the user to go to a phone store and wait for some dude to poke around on it for an hour, or deal with an online bait and switch as I suffered when I bought a Palm Treo from Amazon using Sprint, and ended up getting cheated out of promised rebates from Amazon while Sprint unilaterally changed my contract and then insisted the contract I'd originally bought wasn't something they offered any more.
No OTA updates for what, your calendar? Email updates OTA, and you can listen to audio and watch real video OTA, without paying and ARM AND LEG for Windows Media based rip-off video from Verizon/Sprint/AT&T garbage services.
Apple didn't brick phones; it warned users that if they modified their baseband or device firmware, that installing additional updates might be a problem. That is ALWAYS the case any time you hack at firmware.
What is a "real keyboard," a chicklet panel that slides out, making the phone an inch and a half thick, or a micro keypad that requires typing with your thumbnail? I've used a variety of "real" keyboards on mobiles, and have to say I'm typing much faster on the iPhone. I'd like arrow keys and a way to copy and paste text around, but the keyboard is fast, simple and very usable, and also gives me a very large screen I can use to play online games, watch movies, or browse the web. Those are all things a tiny screen paired with tiny keys can't do well.
I don't know what's sadder, your "opinion" being an interjection common to 14 year old girls, or the fact that another Slashdot moron moderated you as "insightful" for bothering to type it.
Thanks for making the world a stupider place, I was afraid of the potential of human endeavor until you came along.
Slashdot Mirror
-- If I want to "juggle"
No, the problem is that you have no choice but to juggle because there is no RAM installed in the phones Windows Enthusiasts claim cost so much less than the iPhone. Add in a couple hundred bucks for SD cards (hopefully your phone supports greater than 2GB cards) and you end up with expensive hardware with segmented memory. How ironic! It's like the 80s playing over again, with people defending DOS and the 8086 and a 640K memory map and deriding the Mac because it was a "graphical toy." Who needs a 16 bit processor, 640k should be enough for anybody, etc.
--I can and do wirelessly stream mp3s
Well the iPhone can and does access the intarweb, and can stream anything you can play or watch on an iPod.
-- slide-out keyboard (which, bulk aside, is significantly faster and more accurate...
How is a keyboard "accurate"? Do you really think the iPhone keyboard introduces errors just because you've read the latest talking points? You should pick one up and actually play with it, not just hate it from a distance like Rob Enderle. It smartly figures out what keys you're most likely to hit next and enlarges their virtual targets. And when you spell something wrong, it automatically corrects in a way that isn't in the way. It's pretty smart. It's not a full sized laptop keyboard (which is why I'd like a Bluetooth keyboard for touch typing), but to suggest a thumb keyboard is better is just plain bologna.
I'm not saying you can't like WM, I'm just pained by people announcing that POS HTC-like phones "do everything the iPhone does, plus use an amazing software library!!" when no, they don't do the important things the iPhone does (if they did, we wouldn't be so impressed with the iPhone) and Windows Mobile software is all crap#. Sure its a platform with potential, but it's a crap platform with crap potential. The iPhone is trying to be something great, not just trying to monopolize a new market and make lots of money. WinCE has never aspired to do anything but kill Palm.
# I went over the top most popular Windows Mobile downloads from major sites, and quickly added up $115 of Windows Mobile software that solves problems that shouldn't exist, and another $334 worth of third party software that is bundled for free in the iPhone. That's $449 of popular crapware you don't need to buy on the iPhone: Mobile Disruption: Apple's iPhone and Third Party Software
And really, Microsoft has never really aspired to do anything but kill competitors. What truly great products has it ever delivered that weren't merely imitative? The company has a lock on the majority of the tech world, and what has it contributed? It hates the idea of contributing back, it has no respect for users or their rights (PlaysForSure DRM), it has been horrific to nearly every partner the company has worked with*, and... shoot, how much evidence does it take to point out this company shouldn't have fans?
I'm just blown away that people--who aren't getting paid to prattle about the company--have anything good to say about it. That's an irrational religion. People liking Apple's products because they're easy to use, functional, and fashionable is one thing, and people liking the freedom of GNU is another, but what's the attraction to serving as perpetual beta testers for Microsoft, a company that takes so much and gives so little?
*How Microsoft Got Its Office Monopoly
The iPod handles proprietary free formats (MP3, AAC)
The iPhone handles the same proprietary free formats.
The only insidious proprietary formats on recent music players have been Sony's ATRAC and Microsoft's Windows Mobile, and thank god both have been neutralized by the iPod
Rise of the iTunes Killers Myth
You argue many points, but I don't see where you are trying to go with it.
As I noted, Apple had never competed in audio books against Audible, so it partnered with it to use its DRM in that field. Similarly, it would make sense for Apple to partner with an established ebook vendor if it chose to enter that market with the iPod/iPhone. It's not yet obvious that Apple is even interested though.
In contrast, Real and Windows Media are direct competitors to Apple's QuickTime, and so Apple can't be expected to help them out. In particular, Apple has always been against DRM, as it doesn't serve Apple's interests. Steve Jobs' 2003 Rollingstone interview* conveyed the same ideas on DRM as his more recent "Thoughts on Music" that everyone lapped up as if it were some new change in position.
"When we first went to talk to these record companies -- you know, it was a while ago," Jobs said, "It took us 18 months. And at first we said: None of this technology that you're talking about's gonna work. We have Ph.D.'s here, that know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content."
Apple didn't want Microsoft's DRM infecting the planet, and its a damn good thing Apple had the balls to take on Goliath and cut its head off, or Microsoft would now own media in the same way it owns PC operating systems, PC productivity applications, and PC gaming. Why you are so quick to offer up your media playback freedoms to PlaysForSure just because Microsoft make it "easy to implement" is a puzzle.
Why should Microsoft, a company that has done more to restrict user freedom and hold back the progress of technology than any other in recent history, be given additional control of markets, particularly our culture? Apple's FairPlay established an alternative for commercial music to Windows Media, and has resulted in a real market opening for DRM-free music. Did you imagine that Microsoft was going to open up PlaysForSure after it reached 80% market share?
That's something for "Apple is the new Microsoft!!" Windows Enthusiasts to mull over: would the world be better off with a more cruel, criminal master without any taste, class, or real vision for good products? Because I'd say no.
*Rise of the iTunes Killers Myth
Apple partnered with Audible, which uses its own DRM for audio books. What Apple hasn't done is licensed Real Media or Windows Mobile, as both directly compete against Apple in media playback.
So your example in worrying that Apple wouldn't support NIH DRM (I've never put those acronyms together before) isn't really well founded. If anything, it looks like WebKit is gaining support for a multiple page document container for a web archive format that could work as an open eBook system, with or without DRM (I haven't heard anything about DRM support in it).
Add in Google's book library, and WebKit's composite documents (or Leopard's Notes) could serve as a more open eBook container for readers.
UnWired! Rick Farrow, Metasploit, and My iPhone Security Interview
When you accuse someone of not telling the truth, without every saying what they have ever gotten wrong, it really makes you the liar.
UnWired! Rick Farrow, Metasploit, and My iPhone Security Interview
The "two year contract" is for using the iPhone as a phone. A book reader can't place phone calls, so it doesn't exactly compete with the iPhone in that regard.
What I'd like to know is if the Kindle does the same "white to black to white flash" refresh as the Sony Reader. I have checked the Reader out a couple times, but that screen refresh on every page turn is absolutely a functionality killer. Who'd read a book that flashed on every page turn?
Nobody is comparing the Kindle to the iPhone overall; the idea is simply: does Kindle offer enough in display size and book reading specialization features to compare against a general purpose device like the iPhone, which can already display documents that are highly readable, as well as browse the web (something that can't be done by e-Ink displays) and view graphics in color. The iPhone also offers resolution independence that allows you to adjust the type size you prefer just by finger-zooming.
Remember that Tablet PCs sound like a good idea and deliver "features," but nobody buys them because they don't really do enough of anything you can't do with a regular laptop, and can't match a laptop's features, but they still cost a lot. That's a bad product niche to be in. If Kindle fits the same black hole next to a mobile device like the iPhone (which is a phone + a browser + and iPod: that's the reason its cited here apart from a regular mobile phone), then it will suffer the same fate as the Tablet PC. Sony's Reader doesn't exactly suggest a wild future for the Kindle, but it also doesn't do wireless.
If I'm riding the subway, I'm more likely to pull out an index sized iPhone and scroll through a document than pull out a significantly larger slate. Kindle is too big to fit in a pocket. Hence the idea of asking whether it is going to augment the iPhone or suffer the same fate as the Sony Reader.
I haven't looked at the Kindle in depth yet, but if it's a great product that would make reading more accessible, I'm all for it. I think $400 might be too high of an entry price, as it doesn't offer to replace a similarly priced phone (as does the iPhone), but rather the free nature of begin able to read books. Kindle isn't "$400 vs the $400 iPhone plus subscription fees," it's "$400 investment vs $0 reading physical books."
Even the $400 iPod replaced music players that cost $100-400. People who listen to the radio for free wouldn't have ran out to buy an iPod. I don't know of anyone who currently pays $100s for a device to read books, but most people who bought an iPod were accustomed to buying audio players at significant cost already.
So Kindle doesn't exactly face an easy rollout. Amazon also has no history at delivering hardware, and it looks like something that costs $24 at WalMart (in 1989), not a slick luxury item, but if anyone can market something to book readers, one would suspect it might be Amazon. It's also interesting that it can read newspapers, which perhaps offers more of an advantage in reading over using it to read regular books. Although again, I can read newspapers on the iPhone as they were meant to be displayed, and not just a few participating ones.
What You Expected, What You Got: Apple and Microsoft in Consumer Electronics.
With customers like you, it's no wonder Palm is going out of business. I'm sure corporate America is desperately trying to deliver awesome products for people who only want to pay a "song" for hardware. Further, your irrational fear of AT&T service is hard to connect with your frugality because the iPhone's service plan is hundreds cheaper than any other smartphone plan.
Somehow I don't think Apple is missing out by your refusal to buy their products. The iPhone is the top selling smartphone model in the world (despite only really being sold in the US so far), and I don't think the foot stomping of a few angry holdouts is really going to turn the tide.
Have fun with your Palm. I really liked them in the late 90s, but they went nowhere and I began hating my Treo daily from about 2004 until I unplugged it and got an iPhone.
The Egregious Incompetence of Palm
Your != You're. You dislike Apple because you are an irrational Windows Enthusiast with blinders on.
The iPhone is not "shiny," it's thin enough to fit in a pocket without looking like you have a boner. It also looks like a professionally designed device, rather than a cheap piece of shit pooped out by Chinese knockoff artists.
If you carry around additional batteries, you now get to look like you have two boners. Is that convenient for Windows Enthusiasts? iPod batteries cost about $15 for DIY service kits, so if the iPhone's battery doesn't last as long as you want to keep it before reselling it for far more than any WinCE phone has ever been sold, you'll pay the same ~$20 for a new battery kit. If you have to pay someone else $100 to replace your battery, then you can.
Yes, QVGA is tiny, but the screen size is similar. So your text looks like crap from five years ago, and the web looks like ass. That's more than a slight miss. It's a major flaw of you POS phone.
Carrying around flash cards is not a feature. You have 1/64th the RAM. You can't play a 2 GB movie from an SD card, nor can you load up with a lot of music, a movie, several TV programs, and still have lots of space for email. Having a tiny amount of Flash is not a feature. Shame on you for calling me the "fanboy" here. You're defending the idea that spending several extra hundred dollars on easy to lose, easy to wipe, problematic to juggle Flash cards is a "feature." That's bullshit.
What content would I want to play, H.263 Divx? Windows Monopoly Player? Why not take advantage of the latest H.264 hardware encoding rather than "enjoy the freedom" of using a bunch of inferior codecs? Apple only pushed its users to the latest thing for efficiency. QuickTime/iTunes/Handbrake can convert pretty much anything to H.264, where it plays optimally on everything from the Nano to the iPhone to Apple TV, as well as any other modern device. Why would I want to piss around with a bunch of old codecs or the latest DRM from Microsoft? There's nothing open about proprietary alternatives. I can get more free content in H.264, and I can encode my own stuff too.
Windows Media browsers have nothing on mobile Safari. It also does multiple pages/tabs (8) without eating up screen real estate to do it. You get far more viewable area, resolution independent zoom, and better bookmark integration + syncing with your desktop. You also get an RSS feed reader for mobile navigation, and can play back audio or video podcasts live, as well as media embedded in pages.
You can talk about "typos" because you've been trained to pull up the dittohead bullshit by your talking point wags, but you've obviously never used an iPhone, because within an hour you can type faster and more accurately than on a clumsy chicklet keyboard that can only be driven using thumbs. I'd like to be able to pair a Bluetooth keyboard to have mini laptop replacement, but you can hold onto you lameo slide out keyboard, as I'd rather have a phone half as thick than twice as lame.
Your Google Maps client is significantly inferior to the iPhones, which you'd know if you'd ever used both.
As I said, there are advantages you can claim on other phones, but usability and software superiority are not among them. The fact that you are making excuses for a dumpy piece of junk indicates it's not me who is the irrational fanboy.
The Spectacular Failure of WinCE and Windows Mobile
well I hope you're using a marker on your palm and not a Palm Treo, because the Treo sucks:
iPhone vs. Palm Treo
Well we know for sure that the iPhone wasn't faked, plus it's a lot more useful to individuals than having a few people spend a week going a long ways to bring back sand. A million people didn't willingly pay $400-500 to get in on the moon landing.
UnWired! Rick Farrow, Metasploit, and My iPhone Security Interview
Your HTC Herald/Atlas can do some things the iPhone can't do, but it actually can't do everything the iPhone can, so please stop saying this.
It can't look cool: it's twice as thick as the iPhone and looks cheap and plasticky.
It can't deliver 8 hours of talk time.
It can't run anything beyond Windows Mobile, which is a joke.
It can't display more than 240x320 (that's the iPod resolution, not the iPhone resolution: 320x480)
It can't store more than 128 MB Flash without juggling around SD cards, vs 8,192 MB of Flash on the iPhone (64 x as much)
It can't navigate photos or music or menus like the iPhone's multitouch display, and its media apps are no match for the iPhone's.
It can't play or download iTunes content and there's no integrated, free source for H.264 podcasts and other content.
It can't display a functional view of the web with resolution independence.
It can't display HTML emails in a real email client that works well.
It can't do Visual Voicemail.
It can't be navigated with a single button and screen taps. You have a half dozen buttons on the face alone.
It can't be used with an onscreen keyboard, so you have to slide out a chicklet keyboard that is impossible to type upon.
It can't use slick Google integration to pull up nearby searches and map them at all similar to the iPhone's Maps.
HTC can do some things an iPhone can't do, so if you want to brag things up, here's what to say:
You can edit spreadsheets and word documents within a QVGA display.
You can use a variety of proprietary IM services, including Yahoo, AOL, and MSN.
You can buy several hundred dollars of third party WM apps to match some of the features of the iPhone.
You can access your Exchange Server calendar OTA.
You can have your phone remotely terminated by your boss when he fires you.
UnWired! Rick Farrow, Metasploit, and My iPhone Security Interview
What about albums shifting to MP3s? It seems like what's needed is a reliable, simple way to convert books into ebooks. Publishers seem to think they can charge $10 for an ebook, which seems too high. Pricing ebooks at around $5 and creating a volume market might help increase literacy too. Also, creating a format that makes it easy convert desktop documents + PDFs and use content in fair ways would also propel ebook adoption rather than burying it again as Sony's Reader did.
Seriously, wasn't anyone paying attention to what made the iPod work? It wasn't a DRM money train chugging from the iTunes Store, charging more than the price of CDs. It was a thoughtfully designed device with good integration and the ability to use people's existing content.
Ten Myths of Leopard: 10 Leopard is a Vista Knockoff!
Part of the reason for bullshit legalese in EULAs and other warnings is to cover the asses of technology companies that are regularly sued over frivolous nuisance cases because people--and particularly Americans--reserve the right to be morons and expect companies to bail them out after doing moronic things.
By putting disclaimers in a long winded EULA, the consumer at least knows the extend to which the company may go. The alternative to an EULA claiming an agreement that allows a vendor to exchange and collect specific kinds of data would be either not having any clue of possibilities, or not having access to features that might outweigh potential issues.
Do you want the government controlling what services a vendor can offer? Do you want to have no warnings at all? It sounds like you want to have everything with no personal accountability and yet retail the rights to mount frivolous lawsuits over bullshit. Incidentally, that's also why you have to live in a world of bullshit legalese.
Ten Myths of Leopard: 10 Leopard is a Vista Knockoff!
Since you can't use the iPhone without a service plan, you'd have to set up service in order to be put in the terrifying position of sending your mobile's address to Apple's servers to obtain information service updates.
There is no crisis involving second hand sales, because owning the hardware does not result in the panic and fretted about in the post. It's only reason for CONCERN if you sign up for service, at which time you have to walk through the EULA trapdoor yourself.
Concern is the new fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Most people with Grave Concerns love Apple and own all of its products. But lately, they've just been very, very concerned. Things don't add up, and its all very frightening. In most cases, the safest thing is to run back to Microsoft, where at least you know you're being spied upon every two weeks with Window Genuine Advantage. Nothing to worry about.
Steve Jobs Ends iPhone SDK Panic
OS X isn't faster because Intel Macs have EFI firmware, it's faster largely because it loads services in parallel.
In early releases, it it displayed a progress bar during system loading, along with the name of the service that was loading. With Tiger (?) the progress bar was just a timer, and it stopped displaying the names of loaded services because there wasn't time, and because things were all loading concurrently. In Leopard, there is no progress bar. It just loads the window server and then it's up.
Microsoft can optimize resource loading and speed up the parsing of the Registry, but its not going to achieve OS X-like speed without major changes to the architecture of Windows. Given the reception to changes in Vista (say, driver model changes), that's going to be difficult to pull off. And "OS loading time" is among the least important of the problems to fix in Windows. Microsoft should start over and force a transition to a good OS before it loses its monopoly position. It's not like the company has loyal users to reply upon.
Ten Myths of Leopard: 10 Leopard is a Vista Knockoff!
OS X goes from sleep to functional in less than 3 seconds. I goes from sleep to "looks like its awake" instantly.
Ten Myths of Leopard: 10 Leopard is a Vista Knockoff!
IIRC, 300 baud text was about as fast as you could read if you weren't trying hard.
It was also about $6/hour plus long distance (another ~$6/hour) if you were online from anywhere outside of major cities, making being on the Internet expensive for a teen of the late 80s. My parents made me pay my own bills too.
We do not have pure capitalism (any more than we have pure democracy) in the US, and few other countries really approach a system where money is the only thing that makes things happen.
Just as we have a representative democracy, we have a regulated capitalist economy. That means you can't say, "fine, you don't like aspects of the brutality of capitalism, well tell us how to replace it entirely!!!"
We need to constantly adjust how our economy works so we have the right mix of regulation (too much is a planned economy that we know is a failure, and too little is a slave labor state with old ladies thrown out into the street, a popular culture owned by mega corporations, and a population of humans that have no social security or health care; both extremes are bad).
What the OP was likely bringing up is that "capitalism" is frequently extolled as a golden god that does no wrong and should never be questioned or reformed or regulated in any way. That is clearly not true, the the OP is giving a real example of the ills of a "Capital Is Everything" system.
The alternative to brutal capitalism is not "communism," just because the Rupert Murdoch channel wants you to think so. It is possible to have a capitalist state with controls and regulations that assist the weak in our society and provide social services for everyone without resorting to a planned economy and a communist revolution that turns labor into an all singing all dancing peasant class.
In particular, the US is in no danger of falling to communism, but is already teetering on the brink of a corporatist state where the government exists primarily to enforce copyright law and dole out corporate welfare. That's fascism, and it's just as scary as communism.
Anyone who defends pure capitalism as a perfect system devised by Jeebus and refers to anyone seeking reform as leftists and commies has fallen to the right wing propaganda machine. The US needs to purge those people out of control just as Germany did after the war.
Kevin Poulsen Attacks Ron Paul, iPhone, Mac Users In a Single Broad Brush of Wired Incompetence.
Warning! You are using talking points that have expired.
The talking point that the iPhone lacked a "real keyboard" and was unusable slow to use has ended. Nobody can be expected to believe this anymore.
The new talking point is that the iPhone's keyboard generates typos and is "not any faster" than phones with mini chicklet keys.
The differences are subtle, but please stick to the talking points you are given. There's no way we can fight the iPhone without your cooperation in chanting the same complaints incessantly. We have to keep the public constantly aware that Apple's product is a direct threat to everyone in the market, regardless of whether they choose to buy it or not.
The F in FUD isn't for "Fucking Around," so get your shit together soldier.
- Ministry of Defense in the War on iPhone
Join Kevin Poulsen in the War on iPhone. Our advertising dollars are at stake here soldier.
Which doesn't mean its not shit, of course.
Also, NYT's Pogue and WSJ's Mossberg are both bending backwards in their attempts to look "fair," making limp complaints about Apple and trying to give garbage credit for not being on fire. Pogue reviewed the Palm Centro and danced with it like it was something other than the cheap piece of recycled shit it is, dressed up in childish candy reminiscent of the toilet seat iBooks from a half decade ago.
No review can make Windows Mobile look like less of a failure than it is. Microsoft didn't bother to use WinCE in the Xbox or in the UMPC, the very handheld PC application WinCE was supposed to be designed expressly for. Windows Mobile is simply an attempt to recycle failure, and it deserves to die. Google's Android just vacuumed away its remaining oxygen.
The Spectacular Failure of WinCE and Windows Mobile
Actually France sued the iPod and forced Apple to release an iPod firmware version that limited the volume. I refuse to believe Americans haven't sued over similar "OMG I listed to volumes that were too loud and now I want money."
Rise of the iTunes Killers Myth After years of looking foolish for parading out model after model of embarrassing junk as the next iPod Killer, the seas of punditry have given up on finding an iPod Killer, and have instead sought to identify an iTunes Killer.
Isn't that the role of a market based economy to figure out? If consumers want basic phones, they'll buy them. If they want the ability to watch movies and take photos, they buy that.
Are you suggesting the government should decree what phones should be made available to the people? Perhaps a committee of experts could set standards of acceptable products.
Incidentally, the reason camera stores don't sell phones is also related to supply and demand.
Steve Jobs Ends iPhone SDK Panic Apple officially announced plans to release a software development kit for the iPhone and iPod Touch in February. That pulls the rug from under the harping wags who have tried to conflate Apple's security efforts with the persecution of third party developers.
Because the mobile network you're paying $1000 a year to use is only designed to provide minimal voice quality. Perhaps you should blame the provider, not the iPhone.
Of course, that's far less sensationalist and fashionable to complain about than whining that Apple delivered the future of mobile phones at a consumer price.
The Great Google gPhone Myth
Pundits have seized upon rumors of a new mobile phone product from Google as their golden ticket for bashing the iPhone. The "gPhone" is the perfect foil for fear-based rumormongers because it's a secret Google han't said much about publicly. That lets the wags blow it out of proportion and stretch it into an iPhone Killer. They're wrong, here's why.
Like a moth to the flame, I am attracted to your flamboyant sparks.
Yes, the iPhone's design does relate a lot to being from Apple.
But no, Apple didn't "lock the phone," it opened up a standards-based web API that is in many respects better than anything on existing smartphones. The iPhone is also only 4 months old, and Apple has promised additional access in an SDK later this winter. Saying Apple locked the phone for development is ignorant. Saying Apple locked the phone to a single provider ignores the reality that all US phones are locked to one of two network technologies that inherently limits which provider you can chose.
Home activation through iTunes is a lot more consumer friendly than forcing the user to go to a phone store and wait for some dude to poke around on it for an hour, or deal with an online bait and switch as I suffered when I bought a Palm Treo from Amazon using Sprint, and ended up getting cheated out of promised rebates from Amazon while Sprint unilaterally changed my contract and then insisted the contract I'd originally bought wasn't something they offered any more.
No OTA updates for what, your calendar? Email updates OTA, and you can listen to audio and watch real video OTA, without paying and ARM AND LEG for Windows Media based rip-off video from Verizon/Sprint/AT&T garbage services.
Apple didn't brick phones; it warned users that if they modified their baseband or device firmware, that installing additional updates might be a problem. That is ALWAYS the case any time you hack at firmware.
What is a "real keyboard," a chicklet panel that slides out, making the phone an inch and a half thick, or a micro keypad that requires typing with your thumbnail? I've used a variety of "real" keyboards on mobiles, and have to say I'm typing much faster on the iPhone. I'd like arrow keys and a way to copy and paste text around, but the keyboard is fast, simple and very usable, and also gives me a very large screen I can use to play online games, watch movies, or browse the web. Those are all things a tiny screen paired with tiny keys can't do well.
What You Expected, What You Got: RoughlyDrafted Fact Checking
Ten Myths of Mac OS X Leopard: 10 Leopard is a Vista Knockoff!
I don't know what's sadder, your "opinion" being an interjection common to 14 year old girls, or the fact that another Slashdot moron moderated you as "insightful" for bothering to type it.
Thanks for making the world a stupider place, I was afraid of the potential of human endeavor until you came along.
Why Leopard's Time Machine Doesn't Support AirPort Disks