Apple unveils iPhone and Apple TV
What do we think? Will you buy them? Will the new rollouts be another iPod or another (shudder) Zune?
Warning: Discusses Apple Products
I was totally about to Post this, but now I get to use my FPP allotment for this fantastic plastic guard that protects ur bananaz!
I hope it works as . . . good . . . as it looks!
The Engadget article has some pictures of the iPhone in action. Overheard on F**k: "... it's a phone, not the Second Coming of Christ."
True, yes, but it's a damn nice phone.
Oh and PS:
Want.
(Apple TV? Do not want)
AppleTV? Want. I've actually wanted something to wirelessly stream video to my TV, and I haven't found anything that has more than mixed reviews yet. Hopefully Apple's version will work better.
Sweet Mothra, is that phone ever nice. I may have to cave in and buy a cell phone a Mac.
Oh -- and I assume that someone's already tried calling Steve's iPhone?
Being (408) 996-1010?
I'll have to see how the open the Apple TV is before I decide if I want it or not. It would have to be pretty darn good to beat an original xbox hacked to have XBox Media Center on it. (And you can get a wireless adapter for it if you want. I like to think that the ethernet cable stretched to the tv is nerd chic.
The iphone certainly looks really really cool, but I would like a camera in my next phone and I ain't a cingular customer.
it has a camera.
I assume, esp. in light of recent court decisions, it will be "unlockable" to use with other providers that use a SIM-card enabled phone.
It may not be the second crapping of Chris, but getting a phone *right* would be cool.
btw, the Sony W600 is darned close, for what i need anyway.
I see this thing getting scratched pretty easy, like an iPod. And you probably can't use a screen protector since the touchscreen will stop working. But it sure looks nice but pricy. I'll bet that unlimited data subscription you need with it will cost a bundle too. Current price for a 50 MB/month Crackberry plan at the only Canadian GSM provider (There are two, but they're owned by the same company and don't compete) is $95 dollar!
Also, Rogers cripples their current phones pretty badly and I don't know when this thing will be available in Canada. We got iTunes later than Europe, probably beacuse it had to be bi-lingual English/French)
I hardly use my pre-paid phone, but would buy this thing for the 'computer-in-your-pocket' functionality alone. If you could buy it without 2 year contract. But I'll bet then the price will go up considerably since I'm sure Apple gets a kickback from Cingular.
Umm, the last time I dropped $500 on a cell phone [did I?? Hell, I did... *hangs head*], I lost it a few months later. I swore I would never buy another cell phone. It's been almost a few years. I might have to start a fund for this toy if it really lives up to the hype.
*massages itchy texting fingers*
Le Bleu pees a little
via above:
everyone keeps missing the coolest feature: multitouch touch screen.
MULTITOUCH.
You can grab a picture with two fingers, "pinch" it, and pull it bigger.
fucking wow.
posted by Espoo2 at 10:42 AM PST on January 9
I like it that they used HAL for the camera icon...
Don't care for the tv. Almost don't care for the phone. I wish there was a model of the iPhone without the phone bits and for $200 less.
Multi touch LCD screens have been the HCI hot topic for several years now. Glad to see it move out of academia and into the market, though the fact that Apple claims 200 patents on it is very worrisome. I hope none of them covers the basic concept of multiple touch gestures, which Apple definitely did not invent.
$600?
Errm . . No.
*click*
$600 and I'd need to switch to Cingular?
iSkip
But it is purty. Maybe in a couple of years when the price comes down.
I'm decidedly not on board with Apple and their range of overpriced iProducts, but I do like that each time a new one comes out, my Apple stock soars. Whee!!!!
I just feel even poorer than I did a few minutes ago. Can't afford, never will.
iEnvy
As an Apple employee, I can't make any real comments, but... yeah, I love my company.
We love your company, too, surlyboi!
But, does it iVibrate?
I want an apple, now.
Dagnabit. Kids these days. What's wrong with a phone that just makes calls fer cryin' out loud? Ya bunch of lazy, good-fer nothing, over-stimulated whippersnappers.
*sulkily strokes and consoles the olive green rotary phone on his desk*
I'll buy it. It actually appears to have a decent interface sized for adult-sized hands rather than for a six-year old child.
Plus, 8 gigs of lovely, portable pr0n, people! Where's your priorities?!?! And you can get more!
iguanapolitico: if it wasn't for those overpriced iProducts, your stock would be in the iCellar.
Bush sucks.
i am surprised though that we didn't get a word about when the next version of osx would be coming out. Everyone expected it to be announced in order to undercut Microsoft's Vista launch.
drivingmenuts: the overpriced iProducts that people just keep on buying are exactly why I bought the stock! :) Keep buying, people!
I forsee and entire line of "i" products from Apple
The iCouch
The iDresser
The iBidet
and such
The iPants
The iFloss
The iBra
Pearl™ Vison Center and Apple annouce:
The iEye
Pirates™ announce:
The iEye, Cap'n
April 13th 2008:
Steve Jobs announces the acquisition of iCeland.
The concept is excellent. With much less ambitious concepts Apple has had double-digit return rates and famously peeved customers. I'm hopeful v1.1 has 70% of the goodness shown in the demo and can retain 75% of that for a year.
What I find most interesting is that with this and the iTV it looks like Apple now has an embedded version of OS X.
Waiting for the iPalindrome
/TMBG
*eats an iScream*
Yes, but can you use the camera to make iContacts?
ho, ho, HOoo...!?
VENi, VIDi, VICi
This thread is making Windows users quite iRate.
The only way I'd buy this (wonderful, wonderful toy) is if it could interface with a projector to show powerpoints or other notes to my classes. Right now I have to carry a cell phone, an ipod, and a pocket pc (which I use to avoid having to carry a laptop). If I could get all of that in one device, I'd drop some change on it, but it would have to work really well.
iCantaffordit
Waiting for the iPalindrome
OK...
iF I had a hi-Fi
there!
iWon't buy either for a while despite being a mac obsessive ... Both products raise almost as many questions as they answer:
the appleTV ... is tightly tied into iTunes for obvious commercial reasons - the only codecs it supports are MP4 and H264 so it won't stream many of the films/TV that you might have acquired through less corporate means (ahem) - though it will be interesting to see if MP4/H264 becomes the defacto standard for bit torrent content because of this ... I've been using elgato's eyehome to do just this job for a couple of years now and while the interface is clunky and there's no search facility - it does stream TV recordings and movies pretty well - so well that I can use the elderly G4 I got given as a PVR along with elgato's TV tuner - the Apple TV won't replicate that unless you export things you record with eye TV to MP4/H264 which is a time-consuming process. It will probably handle music/photos much better than the eyehome though.
It's a shame the iPhone has no 3g support - which is a surprise and shows that it might be more tuned into the US mobile experience than the European one ... Like others I can see it getting battered pretty quickly in use and how is that nice shiny screen going to look when it's got greasy fingerprints all over it????
And greasy earprints?
*applauds kamus*
It's a beautiful phone and seemingly a technological marvel. Too bad it's from Apple.
It's a phone, right? So what's the reception like? What about voice quality? Does it ring like a normal cell phone, or at least allow me to make it ring like a normal cell phone without paying $2 to download a ring tone? What about battery life?
It's funny people are going gaga over every feature of the device except the one that gives it its name.
Battery life would be my biggest concern with something so multifunctional. I would hope that after all the battery issues with the iPod (and some iBooks), that Apple would have taken extra care with the battery in the iPhone. iSuppose.
dirigibleman, Pogue's mini review in the NYT mentions that the voice and connection quality were good.
iPuns:
iYi-yi-yi-yah
Kottke has made a cardboard version, which is cheaper, for size-comparison purposes.
But why is it always 9:41?
I don't know about this phone, but you can put screen protectors on all sorts of touch screens - and you really should, too. The styluses for PDAs scratch up their screens terribly.
Ack! It's coming soon...
It also appears they've changed the touch screen's protective covering from plastic to glass. Surely they could work a compact mirror into that thing!?
Via the blue, David Pogue's amusing video review of the iPhone. Which, I'm surprised to say, actually confirmed everything good and bad I expected to hear about, down to the last tiny detail. The ending cracked me up.
Side question: Has Apple ever made any sort of statement on the battery replacement issue like "you can get a loaner phone from the store while you're waiting for yours to come back?" Because I'm really surprised that's not a deal-breaker for more people. If this one gadget is going to have all my contact info, my calendar, my to-do list, my music, etc., and be my cell phone, how am I supposed to go without it for two weeks while I'm waiting for USPS to ship it there and back again? Most people I know can't live without a cellphone for that long, and you'd think Apple or AT&T would at least give you a cheap Nokia loaner or something to tide you over so you're not completely disconnected.
Freaking thing is basically an ipod and can't use MP3s as ringtones.
I understand the reason has to be a legaloid one, but still... what the heck?
I spent about an hour yesterday reading that guy's blog (http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com/). The hack is kludgy but still a very impressive piece of work. There are at least two purported "software" modifications available, though I've yet to see a reliable verification that they work.
So I got mrs roryk an iphone for her birthday. She's having a nap so I've snatched it.
What can I say? I love it.
I wouldn't mind one of these, once they're ready for prime time.
I'm with you there, mct. I'm no hacker, but I love the idea of it, and the design is nice. I love the idea of all these c
I'm with you there, mct. I'm no hacker, but I love the idea of it, and the design is nice. I love the idea of all these c
...lever people beavering away make open source stuff for us all to enjoy. Warm feeling.
The iPhone is quite open once you tinker with it a little. You get full ssh access using installer.app from Nullriver.
We activated without AT&T within an hour. Setting it up to run with a European SIM is the next step, but it doesn't look too daunting. At current exchange rates, buying an iPhone from the U.S. is very interesting.
I'm a big sucker for the whole Apple experience, though, right down to the sumptuous packaging. I can see my future self buying a MacOS machine just to complete the elegant continuum across iPod, iPhone, and iWhateverNext.
Sure, rub in the cliff-diving devaluation of our once-proud currency. You're as bad as those damned Canadians lovely, cross-border-shopping Canadians.
ilemming.
We activated without AT&T within an hour.
You did that hardcore hardware hack in an hour? Remind me to hire you when I'm wealthy, dude. That's impressive. I didn't understand but every third word of the instructions for that hack.
iTooth technology has penetrated the wireless jaw market! Part of the iReallyshouldhaveflossed package. Order now; not 100% compatible with iCing.
> We activated without AT&T within an hour.
> You did that hardcore hardware hack in an hour?
I wish :-)
Mrs roryk wouldn't let me anywhere near the phone with a soldering iron. The George Hotz hack is a historical oddity at this point: it's a nice piece of work but very dangerous.
Activation is very simple with installer.app (from Nullriver) and iNdependence (from the iPhone Dev team). This is purely software-based.
Enabling another SIM is a bit more involved and requires root access to the iPhone OS (available via installer.app applications). Again though, it's just software at this point. The people who are selling "unlocking" services are probably doing something very similar to what's possible with free software. http://modmyiphone.com has a decent tutorial from activation without AT&T to unlocking to use any SIM.
Unblocked (any SIM) iPhones on sale in France for an eye-watering, nausea-inducing, tear-jerking, erection-detumefying 999 euros (article in French). That's three and a half U.S. iPhones at today's exchange rate.
In Indonesia, they're currently going for $600 USD (unlocked iPhones).
What's up, France??
Besides, isn't Apple going to be selling the iPhone in the France market fairly soon?
Allegedly in November, or at least it will be announced in November. Orange (France Telecom) was supposed to have an exclusive agreement.
Leclerc is a reputable outlet, so there must be some legal basis for selling the phones unlocked and some continuity plan for firmware upgrades. There's been a lot of discussion on a French legal requirement that "lock in" contracts can't exceed six months. Whatever the deal between Apple and Orange, the iPhone will have to be unlockable after that period, as far as I understand it.
Maybe Leclerc is taking advantage of the legal issues to bring its "free" iPhone to market? I wonder whence they sourced them.
Okay, it looks like Leclerc is doing this for publicity. The phones are hacked and there'll be a warning with them to avoid updating the firmware. At 999 euro, caveat emptor.
Who in their right mind would pay €999 for an iPhone that, in all probability, will not have full functionality?
Who in their right mind would pay $599 for an iPhone that will have full functionality?
*raises hand*
*looks around, sees he's the only one*
*lowers hand, checks to see if anyone noticed*
Wait, you have an iPhone Capt, and you didn't whip it out at our little meetup?
What? No -- no iPhone.
Monkeyfilter: whip it out at our little meetup.
I'll pay $399.
I'm buying one for a friend of a friend in Indonesia. He's shelling out $399 + $35 tax + $50 shipping. Pay no mind that the firmware will never be able to be updated without rending the thing into a paperweight...
New iPhone lawsuit seeks billions in damages: suit claims that
"None of [the antiunlock, anti-outside application changes in 1.1.1] were technically required for the purposes of the upgrade but were designed solely to advance Apple's unlawful purposes and conduct, and not due to any 'unavoidable' conflict or damage resulting from third-party apps or SIM unlock procedures."
Funny, this suit is very similar to some stuff I read on gizmodo earlier today.
Well, you've got to hand it to Apple. When you can make, of all things, a goddamn cell phone that gets people this worked up, you really know your marketing. They're not just creating loyal customers, they're creating what could be termed believers. I can't think of another company that's taken brand loyalty that far.
Chevy and Ford have fierce brand loyalty among certain segments of the population.
It's not an indicator of quality.
I don't think it's the same. I know gearheads who are extremely loyal to a certain brand, but there are actual Apple product evangelists out there. Not paid employees or advertisers, but paying customers who evangelize for the company. Think about it: how many times have you heard someone ask "What's the best way to fix problem X in my Subaru Outback?" and then heard someone reply "Buy a Ford Fusion!"
Buy a Volvo.
I'd sum up Apple's credibility (and by extension, customer loyalty) as based upon quality, stability, and exceptionally good user experience. I don't know much about Chevy and Ford but it seems to me that the loyalty they command is based on something else.
Apple's credibility is the "honourable" explanation for keeping the phone systems closed. The dishonourable explanation is that a closed system helps ensure future revenue streams from phone operators and add-on apps. It's probably a mix of both.
What about the product itself? Quite honestly, it's revolutionary but in a small way. The iPhone is a little glimpse of how our near future human-computer interactions will be conducted.
I agree that they have great products and are probably the heavyweight champs of UI design, but I don't think quality's enough to fully explain the fanbase.
Totally anecdotal example: I have an iPod nano. I adore it. Great interface, lightweight, easy to use, etc. When it dies, I'll buy another one. However, the damn thing locks up on me and requires a forced reboot about once every ten days, sometimes once a week. That's easily as many error-related reboots in just a couple of months as I've had in Windows XP for the year so far, and almost certainly more. That's for a device about 1/100th as complex as a full PC operating system. But ask the internet, and it'll tell you: Windoze suxx0rz, and Apple r00lz.
Now, my iPod's hiccuping doesn't really irk or inconvenience me that much, but neither does it lead me to fetishize the product or chant "it just works" for hours on end, ignoring the myriad examples of Apple product problems you can find with a simple two-word Google search. And while I don't think the bulk of loyal Apple users fall into this category, there is a pretty damn big group of them that honestly believe their products to be (a) incapable of error and (b) possibly capable of curing world hunger. It is for many very much a kind of fetishism, and I find it fascinating.
The iPhone itself...well, in terms of under-the-hood functionality, it's not that revolutionary at all. There are smartphones that do a lot more (without requiring hacks) that have been around for years. The interface is of course what sells it, because Apple was the first to make it beautiful. But I'm not entirely certain that was all Apple's idea. And compared to some of the other ground they've broken, this isn't as big of a deal.
None of this is to rag on Apple or say that they're a Very Bad Derivative Company with substandard products. Quite the contrary -- I think they make great stuff and am currently contemplating saving up for a MacBook Pro. But neither do I think that Steve Jobs is a benevolent genius running the only non-evil tech company on the planet. I just don't entirely understand the fervor.
I'm not an Apple fanboy in the sense of buying only Apple products (I buy PCs mostly because I get more power per euro), but I think it's a fascinating company. The iPod was an amazing introduction and a big risk. Nevertheless, this company has managed to define a market (that they came to later than others) to such and extent that Amazon separates iPods from all other portable digital media players.
Are Apple products buggy? Yes, of course they are, but they've survived because they consistently do certain things very much better than competitors (almost everything in the late 80s; then graphics, desktop publishing in the early 90s; then multimedia in the mid 90s).
Are Apple products derivative? Yes, but they get something right (and it can't be just the marketing) where others have failed.
The iPhone is revolutionary insofar as it gives us new HCI and is from an established company that does very successful marketing and advertising. I'm not much of a business student, but I can recognize that what Apple does is significant and has ripple effects across the technology sector.
When I use my iBook, I feel hip, youthful, and creative. When I use my PC, I feel awkward, stodgy, and boring.
That's because you are!
And Koko smells.
In my career, I've been part of several technical committees attempting to hammer out the details of new computing architectures. One of the keys to our work was universal interoperability...getting hardware, firmware, and software from different companies to play nice together.
Microsoft, Compaq, HP, and all the other names from the PC world were always a part of these groups. Never Apple. Apple is a closed shop...they're not interested in interoperability and probably never will be. It seems to have worked for them, and it accounts for their less-buggy less-bloated more-secure reputation. It's easy to make good software when you know exactly how the hardware, firmware, and drivers are going to respond to it.
But if every company went that route, the computing industry would be a jumbled mess of proprietary standards, sky-high prices, and locked-in customers.
I announced today on the 'firc (why aren't you there? Yes, I mean you) that I will indeed be going for the MacBook Pro when I finally do get the scratch together for it. mothninja is currently sending me psychic encouragment hypno-waves and keeps chanting "One of us," for some reason.
But if every company went that route
IIRC, every company tried to. I remember cracking a few Compaq / HP boxes with proprietary cards of some sort or another that wouldn't work on any other board. And Micro$quash's end run (Activation anyone?) is the same idea - only the "genuine article" is allowed.
You watch - the M$ distro of Linux is approaching.
*tents fingers*
>> But if every company went that route
>IIRC, every company tried to.
Sun made a fortune out of this for years and years, while still remaining within some conceptual "X" system standard.
Apple did align with stuff like USB (grudgingly because it preferred firewire), SCSI, PCMCIA and so on.
Once Wintel became dominant, PC manufacturers had strong pressure to conform to norms. IBM was probably the last possible "independent" to hold out with OS/2, but IBM was itself the originator of much of the PC architecture, so there wasn't likely divergence there.
It's not necessarily good that every company sells the same or very similar stuff.
grudgingly because it preferred firewire
They were never supposed to be competing standards. In fact they were designed for very different applications. Firewire was a consumer video bus, and USB a replacement for RS-232, printer port, joystick port, etc. Systems were always envisioned to have both.
In my business (hardware development), open standards and interoperability are paramount. Probably why I've always disliked Apple's direction.
And you're a hater too. Don't forget that part ; )
"It's not the band I hate, it's their fans" -Sloan ; )
Pretty much sums up how I feel about the Red Sox. After they beat the Cards and broke the curse, a buddy of mine wrote this: "It's times like this that you find out what you're made of. Turns out I'm made of Budweiser and a deep loathing of Boston fans."
/glare
No, you're right. They're models of good sportsmanship and courtesy. See also: Phillies fans.
> They were never supposed to be competing standards.
No, but it turned out that way.
I agree that Apple's closedness has been and continues to be a bad thing; this is one reason I'm still using PCs at home. I just can't help admiring Apple's gradual encroachment on (encircling of) personal tech devices. If I look at how seamlessly my wife's laptop, media player, and phone work together, I become a little irritated by my own kludgy multi-vendor set up.
Then again, I bought a Red Sox shirt in Boston last week on the strength of their comeback against Cleveland.
Your stock? Just dropped.
Still falling, actually.
I like it when we have these quiet conversations, don't you?
More tea?
zzzzzzzzz
OK...she's asleep...bring in the goat.
*pulls out Sharpie, draws on handlebar moustache*
*Dons Green Monstah t-shirt.*
*points, laughs*
*peeks in, looks around, quietly backs out and shuts the door*
One of my uncles in Holland just asked me to pick up a couple iPhones for him on my way out there next week. Nevermind that they don't have iPhones in Canada, either, and I'm not sure I can buy them in the States without signing up with AT&T for a couple years.
One or two iPhones. Whatever.
Capt. you can buy at an Apple Store in the States without signing up for anything.
Hey, pick me up a couple while you're there!
And have your Dutch uncle send me a couple a them Vermeers.
*snicker*
(about the Vermeers.)
I think the "interoperability of the nifty-keep Apple personal tech devices" is partly a design issue: I have no problem charging up my iPod on my aging Sony VAIO WinXP laptop, but it doesn't look as pretty as it would if I were syncing it from a Macbook.
Apple's return to relevance is partly due to the iPod and, for the rest, almost entirely due to their industrial design (not the supposed superiority of the inner workings of their computers - I've used both Mac and Win, and both have issues).
New Apple iPhone 3G, with, uh, 3G and maps with GPS!
No, this one isn't available in Canada, either.
Website says July 11. If it's a true GPS, I'm sold.
Yeah, it will be out in Canada. Depends how much you hate Rogers.
The skinny.
Hate isn't the word. They were my carrier for 5 years until I switched to Virgin. Fucking leeches.
A description of the some of the new hardware and firmware; the GPS is apparently "A-GPS" with a chip from Broadcom.
Doesn't look like Bluetooth A2DP will be introduced :-(
The original story.
I'd have thought that you could make more money with volume sales and a dominated market, but what do I know?
I know I won't be signing any three-year contract, that's for sure.
Heh...Rogers and Apple are both overcharging bastards. I would wish for business failure for both of them, but there are too many people sold on the "Apple == Hip" marketing gimmick. This will sell well and billions will be made.
Finally, the real iPhone
Meh.
While in Indonesia recently, a friend showed me a iPhone knockoff from China that he purchased for $50 USD. I couldn't tell a difference from the "real" thing, aside from the menu screen (when you touched certain icons, they did different things than should have). Works on any network you wish...
Seriously? A battery you can't replace yourself? What the hell were they thinking when they designed in that little 'feature'?
What the hell were they thinking when they designed in that little 'feature'?
C'mon, did you really have to ask? Oh, just a 'lil $85.95 plus the loss of your existing data. A no-brainer!
What the hell were they thinking when they designed in that little 'feature'?
It's been the iPod approach since the first generation. You can replace the battery yourself, but it's a pain and somewhat risky.
there are too many people sold on the "Apple == Hip" marketing gimmick
There are also lots of people sold on the "Apple = market innovators with decent quality product". Plenty of things wrong with Apple (overcharging, trying to lock in customers, etc), but the iPhone is still the most interesting product in its category, as far as I can tell.
It's been the iPod approach since the first generation.
It's gotten more aggressive, though. Before it was merely a matter of getting the case open and closed. Starting with (IIRC) the 2nd gen nanos is when they started soldering the batteries to the logic boards. You can't get replacement kits for those the way you can the older iPods, even with the aftermarket companies.
There are also lots of people sold on the "Apple = market innovators with decent quality product".
Definitely count me in in this category. I've a Mac at home, and a PC at work, and for a simpleton Arts grad like myself, Apple is far better at just doing what I want it to do. I'm not popping the hood on any software or hardware, and I don't need to. I just need it to work, and in an intuitive way, and on that score, Apple wins hands-down. That they're designed well all-round is just a bonus. For me, anyway. YMMV.
The iPhone iNdex: who's paying what in each country. Looks like Italy is the most expensive...
Hundreds disappointed by low iPhone stocks.Customers at the Yonge and Dundas store had been promised breakfast, which many were annoyed to find consisted of a granola bar.
*sad trombone*
Aah, but if they were promised the free Continental breakfast, they'd at least get toast.
And I'm sure that they knew exactly where to put that granola bar, too.
As for when new stocks from Apple Inc. would arrive, "it's all very hush-hush," Gibson said.
Translation: "I have no idea. I only work here."
That they're designed well all-round is just a bonus.
What does that mean, exactly? Pretty? Rounded corners?
To my reptilian engineer brain, 'designed well' means adhering to established industry standards, being fully interoperable with third-party components designed to those same standards, and allowing the user the maximum freedom to set up their system the way they want. Oh...and allowing them to change a battery without shipping the unit back to the factory.
The i-phone has some really cool features, and it will be an excellent product when someone else builds it to a non-proprietary open standard.
Aww, don't worry your pretty little head about the big ol' batteries!
The i-phone has some really cool features, and it will be an excellent product when someone else builds it to a non-proprietary open standard.
Minus multi-touch, Android will probably come close enough.
What does that mean, exactly?
I just think they're pretty...
*quivers bottom lip, makes baby-doe eyes all watery*
Awww, I can't resist him when he cries...
Nothin' wrong with pretty.
I'm seriously starting to suspect that this whole thing has been carefully orchestrated. I didn't even know that the iPhone was being introduced in Canada on Friday. There's been very little advertising for it from either Apple or Rogers. But this little 'spat' of theirs has resulted in front page headlines and lead stories on TV and radio news for a week now. First it was "Apple pissed at Rogers" then it was "Rogers backs down" and now "Low iPhone Stocks". All without paying a dime for the exposure.
> To my reptilian engineer brain, 'designed well' means adhering to established industry standards, being fully interoperable with third-party components designed to those same standards, and allowing the user the maximum freedom to set up their system the way they want.
I'd agree with this in general, but to a lot of personal computer users, "designed well" means things like
someone has put a lot of thought into the user interface so I don't have to;
my computer knows more or less what I want to do;
I can set up things like a home network in a minimum of very easy steps; etc.
Personally, I've stuck with the x86-Win32 platform for years because of interoperability, extensibility, and availability of software. Some of this is lowest common denominator stuff, though, because the x86 architecture has been so pervasive. My wife has been a fan of Apple machines for many years, mainly because she doesn't want to bother with software or hardware configuration at home. She just wants a machine that works.
It's cheap to extend an x86 machine, but it can quickly become complicated even with standards compliant hardware. It's less cheap to extend an Apple machine, but it generally works more or less out of the box.
Apple stuff is "well-designed" mostly because the company controls both the hardware and the OS. This enables things like remarkably quick load or recovery from sleep - I know a Professor of Comp Sci who bought a Mac laptop simply because it had a 50 second advantage over his older Windows machine in recovering from 'sleep' mode. These are the things that make a difference to users. If part of your job is presentation/lecture based, those 50 seconds become important.
Ah, turns out the 3G phones don't have soldered batteries, so I'm guessing you'll be able to order battery replacement kits for those from 3rd party vendors. That removes the one major bad taste in my mouth that would prevent me from buying one if I could justify $70/month for a cell contract, which I can't, so, fuck.
There should be some legally unlocked 2nd-hand phones becoming available in France. Orange (the main iPhone network) is giving a deal to existing iPhone owners that cuts the cost of a 3G model to less than 100 euro. People taking the deal get to keep their existing phones, and the law in France obliges network operators to unlock any phone six months after purchase. Should add up to a stream of 2nd hand phones coming onto eBay at a reasonable price.
a cell phonea Mac.damned Canadianslovely, cross-border-shopping Canadians.