iphone

[Nefertem]

Nah Im fairly certain we'll soon see an iCar, iGlasses, iEtc iEtc iEtc..

Id like prove this accusation by refering to excibit A: The iGun :lmfao:
Hmm.. Not that often I actually bring forth some constructive stuff on this subforum :g:

[A Twig]

Yeah surfin the net at 5 B/s is great ...:flirty:

It would be an issue if I actually used WAP or whatever its called now Definitely with the monkey on this one.

[tugs]

Couldn't agree more. While I like the idea they haven't engineered this thing for the European market. When I go back home I'm still amazed at how lacking the mobile phone market is over there..

Supposedly the next release of the iPhone will support 3G, and hopefully by then they will have managed to do 3G without totally killing battery life which is not great (claimed) on the iPhone as it is with standard GSM/EDGE.
 
The mobile market in the US is... interesting. The biggest issue is one of scale - both geographic and in terms of total subscribers. I lead the IP Engineering team for one of the big US wireless service providers, and we have something in the region of 60 million subscribers. To put that in context, in 2003 the entire UK subscriber base (all providers added together) was around 53 million, and the USA is about 38 times the size of the UK in terms of raw area.
 
Upgrading your network to 3G is not a small undertaking, and the efforts in the UK pale ito insignificance when you look at the scale of the US networks. I also recall that that USA had some real issues doing spectrum clearing for 3G - you have to allocate paired frequencies for 3G, and there were some seriously bad overlaps of existing usage that had to be cleared for it to be feasible in the USA.
 
The final oddity is that the market works in a different way in the US. e.g. in the UK, you can typically get a given Nokia phone in one form or another on every network. In the US, it's absolutely normal to find you can only get a certain model on one network - and the iPhone is no different, as they have signed a 'multi-year' exclusivity deal with Cingular Wireless (who are busy rebranding as AT&T again after the latest merger was approved).
 
The reality is that most people don't really need or want 3G - they want a camera phone, video messaging, maybe email on their phone, maybe MP3 ability - mostly stuff that you can handle well enough with EDGE. 3G is taking off in the USA, and interestingly (if you care about these things), Cingular was the first company worldwide to roll out UMTS/HSDPA - with the Isle of Man or something following shortly after, if you believe that. HSUPA will be next on the horizon.
 
When I was in the US a few years back what was interesting was that despite the apparent backwardsness of the market, they were introducing new content technologies (games, music downloads, two-way radio) before the UK. Guess it depends on what you think backwards means.
 
On the trademark note, you may enjoy this link too, claiming that Apple doesn't actually own the iPhone trademark: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=236


Argue away

[smilodon]

Interesting stuff. I guess when you get down to it I just don't like Apple. I take exception to the way (like Microsoft) they want to leverage off a near monopoly and start dictating what I do and do not do and how I do it. An ipod should have been a thing I could drag my music onto and play....finish. Apple shouldn't assume it's something that given half a chance I would use to become a mighty music pirate and put every music publisher out of business. Or likewise a product they can then use to shove content down my throat and do their best to make sure that whether I like it or not every subsequent penny I spend on music goes into their pocket

Likewise an iPhone seems to be a closed application smartphone. Apple will decide what can and cannot be loaded onto it. So as a smartphone it's looking extremely dumb. No one gets to write all those amazingly useful little applications that turn mobile phones, Mp3 players etc into really useful tools. Apple know best and Apple will tell me what to do.

For me this is like a red rag to a bull. And so in a beligerent and stubborn way I would rather shove that Iphone piece of shite up my a**e than have Steve jobs tell me how I use a mobile phone I own. Pretty is one thing but not when it's at the expense of functionality and freedom.

Long live the revolution

[A Twig]

Pretty is one thing but not when it's at the expense of functionality and freedom.

Long live the revolution

Unfortunately for the majority of products these days, that is precisely the criteria. For a lot of products, the role of a product designer is far more central to a project than that of an engineer, thus often the product has to take the form decided by the designer. Often this means sacrificing functionality in order to achieve this.

I've had many long arguments with a good friend of mine on this count, he is a product designer, I'm the (soon-to-be) electronic engineer. Almost every successful market leading product, while being the best-selling, is not the best in terms of functionality.

Why? Due to user's being aware of a product, and this is achieved through advertising. And it's a lot easier to advertise a pretty looking product. Thus functionality loses out...

[suicidal_monkey]

An ipod should have been a thing I could drag my music onto and play....finish.

It is. I have one. I drag my music onto it and play. The iPod does not require you to have DRM-protected music. iTunes are required by the music industry to sell digital music with DRM.

The only restriction is if the music you purchased has non-apple-licensed-DRM which does not allow that track to play on an iPod. This is not apple's fault. 99.9% of my music is DRM-free (ripping from CD being the best way, imo, to do it legally for now, until a freer licencing structure is thought up)

Apple would never have been able to sell (commercial) music tracks at all if it had not implemented some form of DRM to satisfy the RIAA&co. Hardware can be updated using firmware only so far. If competitors with different DRM schemes do not license Apple to decode their DRM schemes then iPods will never play content from those providers using restrictive DRM. Any content, provided it is in a format compatible with the codecs on the player, that is not restricted by DRM plays no problem.

Likewise an iPhone seems to be a closed application smartphone. Apple will decide what can and cannot be loaded onto it. So as a smartphone it's looking extremely dumb. No one gets to write all those amazingly useful little applications that turn mobile phones, Mp3 players etc into really useful tools. Apple know best and Apple will tell me what to do.

This I read the other day. I'm not surprised, but while it's probably a bad move for those who want to and are able to customise their phones (I can't customise mine much without hacking the branding and locking out of it...which is a network provider issue) I'm sure that there is a huge percentage of the market that will really really like the fact that there's a simple easy setup for the phone. Just like games consoles do so well due to the fact that they work reliably (well, sort of, compared to pc's) and you don't need to know how to update drivers, tweak configs, etc. You plug and play.

I imagine someone will hack their own software onto the iPhone inside of a month if there's enough interest anyway...

With a bit of luck Apple's iPhone will kickstart a few other manufacturers into producing equally pretty devices that are better in terms of functionality and flexibility


the different DRM schemes and formats imposed on digital retailers due to frightened incumbent music industry conglomerates is the reason media is so tricky to move around as seems most proper to the user. Speak with your wallet, buy DRM-free music (CDs or from legally-grey easern-european or asian mp3 websites) Speak with your vote and check out the various political stances taken on these matters. Apple is the obvious big player on the music DRM front so are a legitimate target on that matter.

[suicidal_monkey]

Almost every successful market leading product, while being the best-selling, is not the best in terms of functionality.

This arguement is largely financial. There's enough people who will buy the pretty device without ever really understanding the technology or that it might not quite work how it should. They can not bother making sure it works very well, slap it in a pretty case and hope to sell enough before the market catches on to the fact that the device is not so good - many people won't understand that it isn't very good anyway ... I'm often surprised by the general level of ignorance about certain mainstream technolgies but then I remember that I'm rather more interesteed in it all (engineers ftw!:D)

The engineer who neglects the design role however is just being stubborn and/or stupid. A company that has engineered a fantastic device but then sticks it into a boring shoddy plastic box is only ever going to sell to the enthusiast who understands precisely what he is buying. If this fantastic device was shrouded by a nice-enough design it'd claim a chunk of the it-looked-nicer market.

If it looks good enough, works well, isn't horribly more expensive, and can be operated by an idiot, then it could threaten the market leading pretty-only device.:flirty:

unfortunately lots of firms make a lot of money quickly selling rubbish electrics in a silver box, then the company disappears and a new one with a different name but similar product range appears.

[smilodon]

Like I said I am bias. I take what is being said but Apple are still a company who are obviously leveraging of their iPod range to try to generate as much additional revenue as they can. That's fine as long as they do it by offering superior products. But when they do it by building in restrictions and limitations then I get upset. Maybe I like Napster? Maybe I like it more than iTunes? If I am a Creative customer (which I am), a Sony customer, a Scandisk customer etc etc I can go buy my music where I like.

I suppose I don't have a problem with the iPod as such, it's a fine player and looks good. I suppose I have a problem with iTunes. I just hate it, but then I don't much like Napster either.