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IPhone

  
  

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ZF!
16:47 / 10.01.07
So it's finally arrived.

Hyped as featuring "the most revolutionary user interface since the mouse", which appears to be based on that multi point tech which was discussed here.

While the muti point interface is pretty damn cool, I'm not sure how innovative this gadget really is. It doesn't really do anything that I can't already do on a windows based mini-pda (which have been available for over three years!).

make calls, check
write txt's/e-mails on an onscreen key board, check
manage calender, check
listen to music, check
watch videos, check
surf the internet, check
use gps navigation, check
etc. etc. ...

So yeah in summary, and imho, nothing spectacular, the only thing going for it is the nice design/navigation and the multi-point touch screen(but how long before that's available on regular pda's?). They really nee to work o nthe onboard memory, I'd expect at least about 30 GB to make it worth my while and money (it'll be released with 4 or 8gb).
 
 
grant
17:20 / 10.01.07
Does it have a camera?
 
 
ZF!
18:57 / 10.01.07
that too, 2MP, same as my mini-pda
 
 
RichT's boring old name
19:12 / 10.01.07
I've actually got quite excited, although not directly because of the phone- the main reason is that multi-point touchscreens should become mass produced so things like this could come within the financial means of mortals.

Although I'm sure the phone can be used as a controller if it can transmit actions on the touchscreen via bluetooth and could then be interpreted on a computer using glovePIE or something similar.

This already works with wii controllers (got one on order)
 
 
invisible_al
21:04 / 10.01.07
The real advance is that it's the first use of Multi-Touch display along with a UI for a Mobile Phone that finally looks like something easy to use. I mean even a Nokia, who's UI is better than most, I struggle sometimes to use anything other than the most basic functions on a phone.
 
 
Keith, like a scientist
00:56 / 11.01.07
sure you can do this stuff on other devices - the innovation is how apple solved the obvious problems in thos other devices, and did it in a nice looking, compact device.
 
 
ZF!
07:34 / 11.01.07
I expect that multi-touch display (linked, btw, in my initial posting) to become commonplace within a year of Apple releasing this.

But still, agreed, (and as stated above) it is a pretty damn cool feature. I think where Apple have excelled is in combining the multi-touch display with their new navigation system, which looks great.

However at $500/$600 a pop, (on a contract!!) read £500/£600 for those based in the UK, I'd expect something really good. And apart from the cool factor (multi-point navigation tech) It really doesn't offer anything new.

I mean, I have no problem navigating my current device, and I'll be damned if I'm going to shell out that much money for something which really doesn't offer me anything functionally new and is ordinarily free on a contract!

Throw in a 30gb hd, for the same price and I'm theirs though. :-)

I suppose the iPod didn't really offer anything new either (apart from it's navigation as well) and that's been a resounding success, so what do I know, haha.
 
 
Kiltartan Cross
12:06 / 11.01.07
However at $500/$600 a pop, (on a contract!!) read £500/£600 for those based in the UK, I'd expect something really good. And apart from the cool factor (multi-point navigation tech) It really doesn't offer anything new.

The apparent arrogance behind the "Apple Exchange Rate" is the single biggest thing that puts me off their products. Not that I've any particular vested interest in the relative strength of the pound or euro, I just find the "the only currency that counts is our own, and it's worth whatever we choose it to be" approach deeply irksome. Still, what the hell, plenty of people here seem prepared to indulge them, so who knows?

(I can accept that Apple products sold in countries other than the US might have somewhat higher costs, due to transport and retail, and that these might be higher than for equivalent PC hardware, due to (lack of) economies of scale, but seriously: twice the price? Fuck off, Jobs.)
 
 
sleazenation
12:45 / 11.01.07
THe alternative is to purchase Apple products in the US and take advantage of the currently beneficial exchange rate.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:43 / 11.01.07
I hate to disagree, but:

a) A Macbook Pro - 1GB RAM, 2.16 GHz Core Duo, 120GB hard drive, 15 inch screen - is $1999 and £1399 in the respective Apple stores - that is, they have not just taken the dollar amount and changed the sign. This is why Apple did not go bust when the Lira was still the national currency of Italy. Likewise, the 30GB iPod - $249, £189.

b) I think that actually you will probably find a similar cost differential in most high-tech electronic equipment across the Atlantic - compare a Creative Zen M 30GB - $229 and £164.

So, computers in general are indeed cheaper in the US. However, Apple products, I think, largely track that difference. One may find them more generally overpriced, but that's a different question.
 
 
Quantum
14:04 / 11.01.07
I like it when these innovative high priced gadgets come out because it means in a year or so there will be a reasonably priced and functionally equivalent cheapo version available. If you're willing to wait a year and have one that isn't white with a stylised lower case i on it, it costs about a fifth of the price.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:13 / 11.01.07
I dunno - MP3 players of any comparable quality to the iPod cluster usually about $/£20-30 below them in cost, although they usually have things the iPod doesn't - voice recorders and FM tuners, generally. That's a philosophical issue.

More importantly, new Apple releases push down the cost of existing Apple devices and corresponding technology from other players in the market. I imagine eBay.com will have quite a few 4GB Nanos going cheap in the nearish future...
 
 
Quantum
14:45 / 11.01.07
MP3 players of any comparable quality to the iPod
Low quality MP3 players are now about twenty quid though. Which is a longer term consequence of your point new Apple releases push down the cost of existing Apple devices and corresponding technology from other players in the market. Sticking a superphone on the top of the market means that the bottom (e.g. MP3 players with a gig or two) gets pushed down into 'affordable'. Lagging a few years behind the cutting edge gets less tiresome when something new comes out every year/six months, so the cool toys of 2002 are now stocking fillers.
Like the Wii, PSP, 360 etc, which mean that the PS2 is under £100 new and second hand ones are cheap as chips. The tip-top-tech filters down more and more quickly these days, which as a poor person I appreciate.
 
 
Keith, like a scientist
18:44 / 11.01.07
I expect that multi-touch display (linked, btw, in my initial posting) to become commonplace within a year of Apple releasing this.

I wonder how Apple's patent differs than other takes on the multi-touch display technology and how that will effect how widespread this starts getting used on cellphones, pdas, etc... Jobs made special note of how they had patented it out the yin yang in his presentation.
 
 
grant
19:16 / 11.01.07
Sixfoot6 thinks up potential applications... IF they let developers at it.

Apparently, the flavor of OS X isn't exactly standard, and they're keeping a few secrets. So no Dashboard Widgets for the iPhone yet.
 
 
Kiltartan Cross
13:04 / 12.01.07
I guess we'll wait and see how they price it, although by the time it's eventually released I suspect I won't care.

Looking at the prices of a few things from Apple US vs Apple UK, it does look as if they're better than they were; but there are still some fairly glaring mark-ups; picking the iPod line:

US
Shuffle $79
Nano $99
iPod $239

UK
Shuffle £55
Nano £99
iPod £189

Assuming an exchange rate of £1 ~ $1.9, that's:

Shuffle ~ equivalent $104 (1.3 x US price)
Nano ~ equivalent $188 (1.9 x US price)
iPod ~ equivalent $359 (1.5 x US price)

Which aren't even internally consistent, so I guess they don't have an exchange rate after all. Maybe they just pick numbers out of a hat?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:37 / 12.01.07
Priced correctly, a 2GB Nano is £99 or $149. Assuming 1.9 dollars to the pound, that means that the price differential is 1.26, I believe - $188 against $149. That 1.2-3 remains about constant through the Nano range. You've knocked ten dollars off the Apple store price of an iPod Video 30GB as well, the restoration of which gives you a differential closer to 1.4 than 1.5. Of course, part costs, shipping costs and duty differentials might have a role to play there as well, but in general the more you spend on electronics at American prices the more you save.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:38 / 12.01.07
Actually, looking again, I have no idea where you got $99 for a 2GB Nano, but could you tell me? That's a fantastic price - I could keep one, sell the rest on eBay, make a killing.
 
 
grant
14:55 / 12.01.07
Refurbished, on dealmac.com.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:03 / 12.01.07
Yes, grant, but that's refurbished, and also first generation, I think. My question was about where one can buy a second generation, new iPod Nano - that is, one with a store value of $149 - for $99. I think probably Kay just got confused, but if not I'd like me some of that action.

Otherwise, we ought to be comparing refurbished Apple product prices, yes? And since a first-hand 2GB Nano costs £99, it seems unlikely that a refurbished one will also cost £99.
 
 
Kiltartan Cross
15:59 / 12.01.07
Yes, you're right, $149 and $249, which, as you say, gives them a more consistent across-the-board mark-up.

S'pose iPods (and Apple kit in general) are very much in the "worth what people will pay for them" bracket, rather than the "worth what they cost to produce", and obviously people in the UK and Europe are happy enough to shell out their Sterling, Euros and whatnot for them. I'd still imagine Apple were near the head of the markup pack, but, alas! I lack the enthusiasm to check.

On a vaguely related note, Dell's prices sometimes vary (for the same item) from place to place across their own website; the mind boggles.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
16:26 / 12.01.07
S'pose iPods (and Apple kit in general) are very much in the "worth what people will pay for them" bracket, rather than the "worth what they cost to produce", and obviously people in the UK and Europe are happy enough to shell out their Sterling, Euros and whatnot for them.

Or, and don't let the overwhelming evidence in support of this put you off, this Apple-bashing is simply Apple-bashing, as most electronics products are cheaper in the US than the UK, as was demonstrated above by the comparison of Creative MP3 players, which have similar specifications to and cost much the same as Apple iPods, and presumably by your own adventures on the Dell site.

Now, back to the iPhone. Whatever it retails at in the UK, it is clearly a premium item, in part because it is intended to replace MP3 player, phone and PDA/Blackberry, and seems to be able to do all of these things equally well, while also providing an experience akin to the Nokia Communicator - a wide-screened WiFi-enabled web browse. That's a very, very convergent device. If you can sync it to a desktop easily, and if it can run some sort of productivity software, you might, depending on the size of your fingers, be able to carry it around instead of a light-use laptop.

However, it's this last part that seems the most problematic. People _like_ keys - they provide tactile feedback. Same with styluses. Finger-touches are rather indelicate for writing text, so you're down to a touch-keyboard. This rare piece based on actual experience of the device, here, suggests that heavy emailers (and by extension other type-intensive people) might want to stick with blackberries or Treos - the keys may not be adaptable and upgradeable, but they do do one thing - providing a recognisable interface for the creation of text - very well.

There are some usability quirks that could help this - turning the keyboard into a "conventional" QWERTY in landscape mode, for example, with longer rows and/or larger keys and less screen estate for writing in. However, for what will probably cost a bit more than a top-of-the-line smartphone, I would expect that.

The other issue is whether third parties will have access to the developer kits for this form of OSX, which is quite a big question also...
 
 
grant
17:34 / 12.01.07
Official word out of mouth of Steve is no.



“We define everything that is on the phone,” he said. “You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work anymore. These are more like iPods than they are like computers.”

The iPhone model, he insisted, would not look like the rest of the wireless industry.

“These are devices that need to work, and you can’t do that if you load any software on them,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there’s not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn’t mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment.”
 
 
grant
17:36 / 12.01.07
Yes, grant, but that's refurbished, and also first generation, I think.

OK, OK, for you, I'll make it $95. But don't tell anyone. Should I go get the paperwork now?
 
 
Kiltartan Cross
18:15 / 12.01.07
Or, and don't let the overwhelming evidence in support of this put you off, this Apple-bashing is simply Apple-bashing, as most electronics products are cheaper in the US than the UK (...)

I get it - one shouldn't slate Apple for doing something bad, because all those other companies do bad things too?

I'll remember that one - might have to use it myself one of these days.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:42 / 12.01.07
One should not repeatedly ascribe to Apple alone something which is happening across the electronics industry, for reasons which may include trade duties, export costs and all sorts of other things you appear to have been confused by, landing instead on evil suits, man.

Now, Kay, do you actually have an opinion on the iPhone, rather than a series of incorrect and ground-shifting statements about Apple's pricing policy? What do you think of the iPhone? You appear not yet to have used the word, much less expressed an opinion on it.
 
 
invisible_al
10:47 / 13.01.07
Ok so officially the IPhone wont allow non apple apps to run on it. So I'd like to start the betting on how long it takes for people to hack it from the release date at 1 month .

Seriously this is because of the phone companies they don't like any 'non-approved' stuff on their network hardware. But considering the concessions that Apple have already managed to get out of the phone companies I think we could see this in a few years. But unofficially...hoo the fun people are going to have hacking that thing .
 
 
grant
12:37 / 13.01.07
Define what you mean by "hack it."

I'd expect the first systems for getting in and out of the thing to be widespread by then, but the first actual apps (as in, thngs showing up on digg and reddit saying "Hey, download THIS!") to show up in let's say 2.5 months.
 
 
Bamba
14:54 / 21.01.07
Hmm, I should come into this forum more often I think.

Anyway, looking at that quote from Steve Jobs further up the thread:

"We define everything that is on the phone," he said. "You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work anymore."


I just don't believe or agree with any of that. I don't want my phone to be like a PC? Um, why not? Which is to say that I actually do thanks very much, not least if it's going to cost me £500 and be marketed as some all-singing all-dancing uber-device. My last Symbian based phone, and my current PDA phone, attracted me specifically because I can add to their functionality by installing stuff, that's one of the main reasons why such gadgets are so cool. And Jobs' justification of this by implying that with Apple at the helm of your software you'll get a more stable device just sounds like nonsense to be honest. With my last two phones I installed and uninstalled countless apps and games and whatnot, and do you know how many times the core phone functionality died because of my tinkering? Never. Not once. An experience I share with all the people I know who do similar with their own phones. Even using a PC as an example, when was the last time you installed a new web browser and your graphics card just stopped working? Or a new media player killed your keyboard? Jobs tries to imply that allowing the user to add/remove stuff will inevitably lead to core functionality loss, and the only reason that'll happen is if the OS is shit enough to allow such cross-application problems so that's Apple's problem, not a reason to deny the users functionality 'just in case'.

Maybe I'm just being cynical, but if the phone's features are more or less set in stone then I'm imagining poeple getting hooked on the thing only to find a second generation of the device adding other stuff that they want, so suddenly a pricey upgrade becomes the only way to get that.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
16:35 / 21.01.07
Yes, I agree entirely, Bamba. I mean, I am pretty hacked off that Safari, a browser I apparently cannot uninstall from my Powerbook, can also not be upgraded to tabbed browsing, which would actually make it _useful_. If you scale that up... in particular to not being able to use basic productivity software, the iPhone becomes less useful to me, although that may be because I am canted slightly differently from someone else- I'd be happy to carry around a media player, because I want 80GB of memory for music and video, but I'd want this to be a phone, an address book, a web browser and an easily-synced writing tablet, essentially. Without all those functions, it's probably not worth it at the probable UK price...
 
 
julius has no imagination
16:40 / 22.01.07
Erm, Haus, if you think Safari can't do tabbed browsing you really can't have looked very hard... of course, it has other problems (performance being one) but it most certainly does to tabs.

As for the iPhone and the 'no' on third-party apps - well, I won't be buying one, then. Probably wouldn't anyway, at that price, but without the ability to add stuff (not to mention the at-least-partially-open OS that that would imply) what's the bloody point of the thing? Damnit, one main reason I like OS X is that many apps' basic functionality is extremely simple and easy to get to, yet there's enough advanced functionality a few clicks away to be useful for the power user.
 
 
Bamba
17:06 / 22.01.07
although that may be because I am canted slightly differently from someone else- I'd be happy to carry around a media player, because I want 80GB of memory for music and video, but I'd want this to be a phone, an address book, a web browser and an easily-synced writing tablet, essentially. Without all those functions, it's probably not worth it at the probable UK price...

I don't think your cant is all that unusual there dude, I'm exactly the same in that I'm carrying around a PDA phone and 20GB mp3 player all the time because I want it that way, and most of my techie mates do the same. Multi-purpose devices are all well and good but they tend to be a bit jack-of-all-trades thus far (as well as simply not having the storage capability I need) and music isn't something I'm willing to compromise on, hence a dedicated music player is essential to me. Which really I suppose is just me saying I don't trust a phone to be as good as my iAudio and there's no reason it can't be really, but so far I'm not convinced we're at that stage so I'll carry on as is.

Anyway, that slight digression aside, given your list of essentials above, doesn't the iPhone's spec already cater to you? I can't see anything from your list that it hasn't been confirmed to do anyway. My viewpoint is just an instinctual recoil from a device that's pricey enough for me to demand Pocket PC style functionality from it, and me seeing no valid reason it can't provide that except Apple being, well, dicks about it. Which makes me even more suspicious than I usually am over some of their marketing and design choices. But, if you were sure that all you wanted for it to tick your own boxes was "a phone, an address book, a web browser and an easily-synced writing tablet" then isn't it already there? Or am I missing something? It's entirely possible, indeed it's very likely given my usual levels of incisiveness.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
17:26 / 22.01.07
Erm, Haus, if you think Safari can't do tabbed browsing you really can't have looked very hard... of course, it has other problems (performance being one) but it most certainly does to tabs.

Well, let's take a look at what I said.

Yes, I agree entirely, Bamba. I mean, I am pretty hacked off that Safari, a browser I apparently cannot uninstall from my Powerbook, can also not be upgraded to tabbed browsing, which would actually make it _useful_.

My Powerbook G4 runs OSX 10.4.8, and I appear to be unable to install onto it the new form of Safari that has tabbed browsing. As such, the existence of a tabbed form of Safari, of which I am aware, does me very little good, and I would, it seems, have to upgrade either the software or the hardware of my Mac in order to alter that.

Bamba:

I don't think your cant it all that unusual there dude

Absolutely - hence "different from someone", not "different from everyone". It's just that 4 or 8GB would do me for something I used exclusively at the gym because I didn't mind if it broke. It won't do me much good as a first-rank media player, as you say. Some other people have smaller digital storage needs - although given that that 4GB is going to have to take the OS and all the phone information as well, that might be optimistic. The being being simply that the uselessness of the iPhone as a proper digital media player isn't a huge issue for me.

It's entirely possible, if not very likely indeed.

We may have different ideas about what constitutes a tablet, but as far as I know the iPhone is not going to ship with a stylus or equivalent, or a handwriting recognition system. So, yes, it looks like you've missed something, or I have. It also seems that the typewriter keyboard will not go to landscape format when the screen is turned, making it for less useful as a writing tool. Also, it does appear to be likely to sync easily with existing productivity or management software. What I'd _like_ would be something I could use to port documents seamlessly between the three computers I regularly move between on the average day, using wireless, bluetooth and USB connectivity. So, it's not just a writing tablet, quite right. However, it appears not to be even a writing tablet at present.
 
 
Bamba
18:14 / 22.01.07
We may have different ideas about what constitutes a tablet, but as far as I know the iPhone is not going to ship with a stylus or equivalent, or a handwriting recognition system. So, yes, it looks like you've missed something, or I have. It also seems that the typewriter keyboard will not go to landscape format when the screen is turned, making it for less useful as a writing tool. Also, it does appear to be likely to sync easily with existing productivity or management software. What I'd _like_ would be something I could use to port documents seamlessly between the three computers I regularly move between on the average day, using wireless, bluetooth and USB connectivity. So, it's not just a writing tablet, quite right. However, it appears not to be even a writing tablet at present.

You're perfectly correct, I keep thinking 'touchscreen = stylus' just because every other device I know of follows that tradition and I'm guilty of forgetting here that the iPhone doesn't, apologies. For me that wouldn't neccesarily be a deal breaker because I've never used the handwriting recognition software on my XDA (aside from playing with it a bit when I first got it), I've stuck to the on-screen keyboard as I couldn't get the handwriting side of things to ever work as quickly or as reliably as the keyboard, But obviously that's just my own preference and it sounds like it's having a much bigger impact on your opinion of the thing.

The syncing I confess to being pretty ignorant about, it's not an aspect I've read anything about in the articles I've looked at. Have they actually gone on record saying such functionality won't be available, or are you just assuming this by the omission of such a confirmation? I ask because I genuinely don't know, and because it would seem like utter madness not to offer that functionality in a device that seems almost designed for it. I mean they'll have to at least allow you to sync contacts and the like, a service almost every other mobile phone offers, and once they've gone that far then not giving you syncing of just general files looks like cruelty to their userbase more than anything else. Which isn't to say that's not the route they're going down of course and the admittedly bare page they've got up on the site at the moment does strongly imply a dearth of functionality. In fact I'm even assuming here that there'll be a way to shovel random files onto it and that's not something I've seen mentioned either.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:16 / 22.01.07
I'm assuming there'll be some kind of syncing, yes - and I assume that there'll be a way to use it as a mass storage device. I'm having trouble explaining what I'm seeing as the gap, here... essentially, being able to whack a Word or OpenOffice document onto it, edit it in a similar interface, move it onto another computer (Mac or PC)... so, it's kind of a combination of productivity software, interoperability, easy syncing... and it might manage it all, of course. I may be being a moaning minnie. However, ultimately, I'm probably just saying that I wanted Apple to make a really fantastic PDA, and I'm aware that nobody actually wants a PDA except me these days...
 
  

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