Video speed test: 2.5G EDGE iPhone vs. mock 3G HSDPA iPhone - Page 6

Originally Posted by Adjei

People like to go on about Apple failing in Europe, but what about their precious Nokia struggling in America, why haven't they being able to translate their world domination into our American market or I guess when it comes to Nokia, it's irrelevant:

"Of course, providing a viable competitor to Apple’s iTunes means succeeding in the U.S. market as well. Currently, Nokia has just 7% market share in the United States, and its total North America sales accounted for only 2.6% of its overall, global revenues."

http://techland.blogs.fortune.cnn.co...apples-iphone/

Originally Posted by mrochester

In Europe and Asia, we shrug our shoulders and say 'next' because we've seen it all before, and expect more.

Originally Posted by TenoBell

There are several problems with this line of logic. The first being that their are a line of iPods that don't all serve the same purpose.

The shuffle, nano, or classic bear little resemblance to the iPhone. Outside of media playback all iPods share a few cursory features but don't at all share many others.

The iPod Touch is basically an iPhone with no Phone or SMS. After the SDK and VOiP that distinction will also change.

The iPod Touch is more a PDA than simply a PMP. iPod is one application among several shipped with the device. It will also have access to the products of 20,000 developers and thousands of web based applications.

Originally Posted by Adjei

People like to go on about Apple failing in Europe, but what about their precious Nokia struggling in America, why haven't they being able to translate their world domination into our American market or I guess when it comes to Nokia, it's irrelevant:

"Of course, providing a viable competitor to Apples iTunes means succeeding in the U.S. market as well. Currently, Nokia has just 7% market share in the United States, and its total North America sales accounted for only 2.6% of its overall, global revenues."

http://techland.blogs.fortune.cnn.co...apples-iphone/

Originally Posted by TBaggins


According to Nokia's chief designer Alastair Curtis, that's about to change. In an interview with Finland's Helsingin Snaomat, Curtis said the company is planning to release a number of new models that are specifically tailored to meet the needs of U.S. carriers in the coming months. Some of these phones will be new CDMA-based models, he said, while others will be European adaptations that can take advantage of the more common calling frequencies and bands used in North America.[/I]

..."They need to invest in CDMA now. They also need to start getting their high-end GSM products to the U.S. market now."

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/0...-promises.html


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Originally Posted by TenoBell

Europe and Asia haven't seen what is soon to come.

Originally Posted by sapporobaby

100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000% correct. Nokia has also built an empire, so to speak, without focusing (as they admitted on the US). Not bad I would say. Apple thought it could bring a third rate product into Europe and the masses would fall all over it. It didn't work. The iPhone has been compared to the N95, N82 (really a much better phone) and in terms of the basic features (telephony) it lost. In terms of more advance features it only did marginally better at best, or marginally worse. So Europeans looked at it and were not impressed. Rightfully so in my opinion. As I stated, and got yelled at for, the US market has not had the high-end phones in the same way, Europe and Asia, as well as the Mid East have, so for most Americans, they have no frame of reference. When something like the iPhone comes along it has the "wow" factor going for it, but little or no substance behind it.

Originally Posted by sapporobaby

Sweet !!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for posting the article.

Originally Posted by samab

All this talk about Europeans being spoiled by tons of high-end nokia phones --- is over-rated.

The iphone didn't do too well in the US either --- if you just look at the activation numbers.

If AT&T did 900K and O2 did 200K --- and the US has 5x the population of UK --- then you will know that the US numbers are not that great to begin with.

Originally Posted by mrochester

What the post says is actually quite true... American's have been shovelled low end phones for a long time now, way behind the more advanced devices we get in Europe and Asia. The iPhone pops up, and in the US it's a roaring success because to the American market, it's a major, high end phone in comparison to what has come before. In Europe and Asia, we shrug our shoulders and say 'next' because we've seen it all before, and expect more.

Originally Posted by DavidW

There's a couple of reasons for this. It's because our network infrastucture is way behind that of Europe and Asia. You can't sell the "high end" phones available elsewhere here because many of the features they had won't work here. But "high end" phones are available here. They just aren't as "high end" as those in Europe and Asia. And most of them have to be bought.

Which brings us to the other reason for this. Over here, it makes sense to commit to a single carrier (with National coverage) for two years in exchange for a free (or nearly free) phone. The vast majority of us here never leave the States. Or do so infrequently. Those who do travel a lot do buy "high end" phones so that they can use it while travelling. Most will settle for the "low end" phones that they get for free.

In Europe and Asia, you can take a 1 hour train ride and be in another country. So it makes sense to buy the phone out right and pay for the service where you use it. In Europe and Asia you can literally spend the weekend in another country and think nothing of it. Over here, unless you live next to the Mexican or Canadian border, another country is either a long drive or an air flight away. So in Europe and Asia, when you have to buy a phone, most will buy the best they can afford. But when you get it for free, you take what they shovel you because in two years they'll give you another one.

And if the iPhone is not so special to the people of Europe and Asia, then why are so many iPhones bought here in the States, endind up in Europe and Asia unlocked? Where Nokia rules. Surely Nokia must a have a "high end" phone at a cheaper price and more features that would make buying and risk unlocking an iPhone a sensless act. Even if it's last year model. Afterall, the iPhone is not cheap by any standards, can't do many of the stuff a Nokia "high end" phone can do and is not even a 3G phone.

The iPhone is a roaring success in the American market because it's marketed as a "high end" phone for the consumers. Not for the businessman. To the average consumer a "high end" Nokia is of no value if you have no use for 80% of the features that makes it "high end". And it's diffuclt to use the 20% of the features that you do want to use. For sure it's not a "high end" phone for the businessman. Not yet at least.

The consumers are more concern about having easy access to their music. Being able to find a snapshot that they took of their kids, with the phone several weeks ago. Easily getting on to the internet and having it look like what they see on their desktop at home. They want to be able to do the smiplest things without looking like they're text messaging on their phone.

Before the iPhone came out, neither Nokia, Sony, RIMM or Steve Balmer believed that the average consumers would pay over $400 for a phone that had less features that a "high end" smartphone (at the time). And whose strongest selling point was that it did basically what much cheaper phones did but was only simpler to use. It's been almost a year and over 5 million people didn't buy the iPhone becausse they thought it was a "high end" business smartphone. They bought it because it's a "high end" consumer smartphone. And neither Sony, RIMM or Nokia has anything that compares to it at this level. They still don't get it. It's not about adding more features that the majority of the consumers don't care to use. It's about making it easier to use the features that the majority of the consumers want to use. And the last I checked, the consumers, not the businessman, are the vast majority of the cell phone users. No doubt that Apple will talyor the iPhone for businesses. But the bigger market will always be the consumer smartphone market.

Originally Posted by Carniphage

Here's why the iPhone is the most disruptive product in the cellphone industry.

The iPhone started as a project in 2005. After a year's work, it was unfinished. After another year it was done.

In two years Apple had created a completely new mobile platform from scratch.

In the same two years Nokia did what? Add more megapixels to its camera? Cram in GPS? Struggle to make its fonts even uglier? Add another set of sub-menus to its consumer phones?

Yes, the iPhone, as launched, was relatively feature-light. But it's not the features, it's the software stupid.

iPhone runs on Unix. Proper Unix.
This is advantage one. Advantage over the Psion-Organizer spawned Symbian, or the mini Windows 95 that became WinCE and Windows Mobile. The OSX core is a big win. But not nearly as big a win as advantage 2.

Advantage 2 is Cocoa. Previously known as NextStep. A set of software tools which let you build finished robust applications really quickly that run in native code. The apps are not using Java. They do not run as interpreted p-code.
Cocoa means iPhone application development can move ahead twice as fast as any other platform. And the apps will run twice as fast. Just this week we are seeing Chinese character recognition. We'll see push email. We'll get wireless calendar syncing. And Apple will roll-out features way faster than Nokia can roll out new phones.

Advantage 3 is the rasterizing and rendering technology. Including core animation. This means the apps don't look like ass. They look goood. They understand fonts. Chinese characters. Arbitrary scaling. PDFs . And each screen seamlessly and elegantly animates into the next. No one else in the industry has a display model built on top of PDF. And is happens fast too... because it all drives a GPU. So even though the N95 has a GPU, it does not make use of it to do the heavy lifting. No "scrolls like butter" here. More "scrolls like toast". In thick slices.

The question everyone asks of all companies is "Don't you think we could do that too"?

Could Apple add a GPS? Yes.
3G? Yes.
MMS? yep.
Could Apple toss in a 4K-RED 1- camera? Surely!
They could even add a silly Nokia D-pad keyboard if they wanted. It's just wires and chips. Adding these features is easy. That's why Nokia and SE fill their phones full of this crap. It's easy and makes the feature-list grow ever longer.

But turn this around. Can Nokia and the others catch up with Apple's software advantage?
Could Nokia switch to Unix/Linux? Probably....
Could they create an application building technology akin to NextStep / Cocoa? No! No way. It would take 10 years. Same again with the display model. It would take them too long. You can't add Cocoa with a soldering iron.

Notice we have not even talked about the iTunes media advantage?

Why is this so disruptive?

The way to appraise this situation is not to look at where these products are now. But to look at how fast they are evolving - and how the software technology they depend upon will limit that speed of development.

Nokia might be the elephant in the Mobile jungle. But Apple is the Cheetah. Nokia might be in front. But they can never catch-up. This race, it's over already.

Perhaps the best observation is Palm's CEO, Ed Colligan who said...
Weve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone, he said. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. Theyre not going to just walk in.

C.

Originally Posted by mrochester

Nokia, Samsung, SE etc do all of those things already. I don't know anyone who can't access their music, photos etc, because it's 'too complicated. A good majority of them can browse the web too exactly as you see it on your computer. And they do all of this whilst being cheaper and having extra features that the consumer may or may not choose to use, but they at least have the choice. In the UK and Europe, we already know how to use our phones. We don't need to job to be made any simpler, it's already simple enough.

Originally Posted by sapporobaby

Isn't it actually BSD? Didn't aegis give a wonderfully detail explanation regarding the rendering of fonts, pixels, etc??? Doesn't Nokia already have 3 Linux products, no make that 4 Linux products on the market?

Originally Posted by sapporobaby

I don't think anyone here denies that the software on the iPhone is top notch, no one here said the display was not great or the browsing experience was pretty good. From my understanding, the phone part of iPhone or as I call it, iPod with phone, are purely crap. Even Motorola could deliver better phone features. Man it is great to have a phone with the best software in the world without any really usable features on it. A great idea.

Originally Posted by Carniphage

BSD *is* Unix. Although OSX itself is a mix of different Unix products. Mach core, and so on.

Nokia's font rendering technology is stone-aged compared to what Apple has. It's not just the screen size. That's why it looks so incredibly bad.

Nokia's lacklustre Linux products show exactly the problem they have.



You seem not to have read the post.

Could Apple easily slot in new chips and improve telephony and data? Yes. Anyone can do this.
Anyone can buy chips. Anyone can solder. Anyone can read Mobile Phone Construction for Dummies, it is $9.99 on Amazon.

Could Nokia create something equivalent to Cocoa or Core Animation? No. It cannot possibly happen. By integrating this software into a mobile platform gives Apple a 5 year head start allows it move so fast that Nokia has barely time to read the press-releases. And without those technologies, Nokia can't start to catch up. It's fat grey elephantine legs are tied together.

C.

Originally Posted by mrochester

You're already heralding the new iPhone as a massive achievement without even knowing it's spec, ... (and I include the OS in the term 'spec').

Originally Posted by solipsism

But we do know OS X, and we know Mobile OS X, and we've seen all the major "spec" changes the v2.0 will shortly have. We've even had hands on experience with the SDK, its 5 updates in just a few short months, and seen impressive demos of what we can expect from 3rd-parties.

Originally Posted by sapporobaby

As far as this current iPhone is considered, it was and remains a disaster.

Originally Posted by solipsism

Disaster is such obvious hyperbole that it makes it hard to reply to your posts. You also referred to people that liked the iPhone as not have discerning tastes. The antonyms of discerning are: witless, obtuse, unintelligent, dull, unsophisticated, unwise, unaware, unknowing and clueless.

There are aspect of the iPhone that make it a bad choice for you, but for others it's the best option available. Whether you call it the Jesus Phone or the Wanker Phone one thing you can't deny is that it's presence is good for all consumers. How long did it take Nokia to stick 8GB into the N95 after the iPhone was released? How long did it take before multimedia became something that cell manufacturers started taking seriously with larger sized, higher-resolution screens? How many manufacturers had multi-touch handsets prior to the iPhone? I don't have numbers but I do recall the prices of all the other high-end phones dropping after the iPhone hit; that can't be a coincidence.

The next thing I'd like to see is the other manufacturers taking more time to develop their OS and UI. I'd also like to see them make software development more accessible to the average programmer and include a centralized app store so the average user doesn't have to scavenge the internet looking for a simple app. I don't care who borrows from who, I'm just glad that the years of stagnation has finally ended.

PS: I foresee that within 6 months of v2.0 launching there will be more apps for the iPhone than every other mobile platform combined.

Originally Posted by sapporobaby

Here again the iPhone was a harbinger of good things. As I tried to make clear several posts ago, I am more than happy with the iPod, email, web browsing features of the iPhone. Where it falls flat in my opinion is in the telephony functionality. Here I find it rather anemic with much room for improvement. Throughout this thread, I have tried to make this clear.

The problem that phone manufactures such as Nokia have is that they are saddled with a 6 months conception to birth product cycle. There is no way to fully test software and hardware and work out all of the bugs. It seems that we the paying consumers will be perpetual beta testers.

That is an interesting proposal. Symbian has quite a large head start, and I am only talking S60. If we throw in UIQ, S40, S80, your 6 month projection might come up way short. However, if you are correct, I will buy you a Pepsi (I don't drink) and we will celebrate your prophetic nature.

Originally Posted by solipsism

I wonder how good Nokia's first phone was on features. (j/k, that is not a fair comparison)

On the telephony side, it does make and recieve calls, which seems to be the most important aspect of telephony. It also has Speaker, Hold, Add Call(s), Switch Call, Keypad, Mute. That is pretty good for most people, and adequate for their foray into the cell market. Which manufacturer said that Apple can't just expect to come in and make a phone? Perhaps, in typical Apple fashion, they went with what they knew best while adding the necessary features that all users need.

I'm reading a few things there. One, you are making excuses for Nokia; two, you're admitting that Nokia is playing catchup to Apple on that front; and, three, that the market was stagnant, and that Nokia and others were shuffling their feet until the iPhone came along.

You're right, that isn't enough time, despite having 17 months since the iPhone interfce was first debuted in January 2007. However, Apple is not exempt as it has shown that it too will rest on it's laurels if given the opportunity so it's sad that best alternative to Apple's UI is some mOS X-like visage on WinMobile 6. I really hope Android or someone else can really add some competition in that department.

I'm expecting the growth to be similar to that of DashBoard widgets, many of which are very simple while being useful (is there a Tomatometer app for Symbian?). While there are many more developers that can create Widgets the ability to get paid for your work will balance that somewhat.

Originally Posted by sapporobaby

Did you take my offer on that Pepsi?

Originally Posted by sapporobaby

Well considering the Nokia 2110 and 2110i were the ones that pretty much started the mobile phone revolution (they only expected to sell a few thousand and ended up with a bit over 2 million), they did have SMS and a few other features. Not much though.



Yes and no. From anyone else, it might be excusable but Apple sets the bar high every time and in my opinion, it missed the mark. You are correct about the basics of telephony, but in my opinion once again, power users expect more from a phone that is supposed to be revolutionary, which in my eyes makes the iPhone an iPod with phone, but hey, this is my opinion. Hell, they even missed out on A2DP. All the major manufactures have this feature.




Not making excuses, just stating facts. Nokia didn't have to chase the US market and they were still on top, now it is no longer just a phone market. So they need to bring their A game. If it were purely phones, Nokia would win hands down. Apple introduced an OS and UI variable into the mix that Nokia is starting to address. Personally, I hope their device is as good as the next iPhone. I don't mind having two devices in my backpack, pocket, etc.... It's only money.



ibid



What I fear is a dearth of garbage apps. Maybe the good part of the iTunes store will be some sort of vetting.

To go off into the weeds a bit, I just spoke to Zibri of Ziphone fame. He said 2.0 is not an easy nut to crack. It will be difficult but can be done. Interesting times are coming.

Did you take my offer on that Pepsi?

Originally Posted by sapporobaby

As far as this current iPhone is considered, it was and remains a disaster. A learning experience for Apple. For Nokia, it should serve and a catalyst as to what not to do, and what it should do.

Originally Posted by mrochester

Nokia, Samsung, SE etc do all of those things already. I don't know anyone who can't access their music, photos etc, because it's 'too complicated. A good majority of them can browse the web too exactly as you see it on your computer. And they do all of this whilst being cheaper and having extra features that the consumer may or may not choose to use, but they at least have the choice. In the UK and Europe, we already know how to use our phones. We don't need to job to be made any simpler, it's already simple enough.

Originally Posted by DavidW


With the touch of a "button", the iPhone turns into an iPod with all the function and feel of a MP3 player. You tend to forget that it's also a telephone. That is until you recieve a call and the music fades and an iPhone reappears on the screen.

If you really don't care about the music features of a cell phone, it may be O.K. to say that Sony, Nokia, Samsung, etc. had all of this before the iPhone. But if the music features of a cell phone is important to you, then there's no way that Sony, Nokia, Samsung, etc. had anything even close to the music features of an iPhone. They wouldn't even stand up against MP3 players from Creative, Sansa or a Zune. Let alone an iPod.

And it's not fair to compare the interenet experience you get now on phones from Sony, Nokia, Samsung, etc. to the iPhone and then say that they had the interenet way before the iPhone came out. For sure they had the interent before the iPhone came out but it's only after the iPhone came out that they improved upon that experience. Before the iPhone, the interent on the other phones was really only useful for accessing e-mail accounts. Browsing websites was a far cry from what you see now.

You can look at it this way. For $400 you'll getting a $300 iPod. So you're only paying $100for the telephone. What do to expect from a $100 cell phone. At least when it's time to upgrade you will still have a $300 iPod (if you unlock it) How much is that $600 "high end" Nokia going to be worth when it comes time to upgrade? It probabally won't even pass as a $50 MP3 player.

Originally Posted by Carniphage

Lol.

If you look in the dictionary, under the word "disaster", you will see a picture of Nokia's N-Gage.


A device which was supposed to merge telephony with mobile gaming.
It was Nokia's attempt to extend what mobile devices could offer in addition to being mere phones. And it revealed Nokia as utterly clueless in understanding both markets. We ought to have forgotten it, but Nokia keeps reviving the name.
They shouldn't do that. Screwing the pooch is one thing. But reminding everyone with photos showing the canine-abuse is just bad taste.

The money spent on promoting Nokia's "entertainment platform" was probably twice the development budget of the iPhone. Giant stands at E3 don't come cheap.
Thankfully no game developers were harmed in its creation.

What Nokia did during the two year development of the iPhone is stand completely still. Nokia is not so much resting on it's laurels, as nailed to them.

Yes, competition is great, and it would be awesome for the market if a competitor were to stand-up and respond to the iPhone. They might push the development of mobile devices even harder. But who exactly is going to do that?

It's not going to be Microsoft. Their customers are having to write their own interfaces.
Palm is dead already.
Rim will try to retain its niche. It's all it can do.
Only Google Andoid has a chance, but their platform is crippled as a platform. Linux and Java and OpenGL do not fit together to be a complete solution by a long chalk.

And it isn't going to be Nokia. You can't make better software with a soldering iron.

Oh well. Here's to iPhone 2.0 and a global roll-out.

C.

Originally Posted by sapporobaby

You failed to mention "Minidisk" as well. This could be a red letter day when we agree on something. Both were not bad ideas but hampered with terrible execution. I think, and once again this my opinion, that mobile gaming is a waste of time. I have chess and othello on my iPhone and they sit there for weeks without ever being played. I have a few games on my N82 as well. I do not know if the market is ready or even if there is a market for gaming on phones. Time will tell.

You have a point again that Nokia did not bother with the US market as it should have and now the execs are formulating a battle plan. It will be interesting to see how this plays. Apple is equally as guilty of trying to shove a US model down European throats, and it cost them iPhone sales. I am also sure they got the message and will make more realistic offerings this time around. Either way, my money is ready for Nokia or Apple, or even both.

Originally Posted by sapporobaby

You failed to mention "Minidisk" as well. This could be a red letter day when we agree on something. Both were not bad ideas but hampered with terrible execution. I think, and once again this my opinion, that mobile gaming is a waste of time. I have chess and othello on my iPhone and they sit there for weeks without ever being played. I have a few games on my N82 as well. I do not know if the market is ready or even if there is a market for gaming on phones. Time will tell.

You have a point again that Nokia did not bother with the US market as it should have and now the execs are formulating a battle plan. It will be interesting to see how this plays. Apple is equally as guilty of trying to shove a US model down European throats, and it cost them iPhone sales. I am also sure they got the message and will make more realistic offerings this time around. Either way, my money is ready for Nokia or Apple, or even both.

Originally Posted by addabox

Just out of curiosity, in what sense does "offering for sale" equal "shoving down one's throat"?

Originally Posted by mrochester

It doesn't really. The expression should be that they were offering the wrong product at the wrong price. It was the right product at the right price for the US, but not for Europe.

Originally Posted by mrochester

It doesn't really. The expression should be that they were offering the wrong product at the wrong price. It was the right product at the right price for the US, but not for Europe.

Originally Posted by Carniphage

Apple's global target for the year 2008 is 9M. If that includes the global launch of iPhone 2 - they are probably on track to hit it. Especially since iPhone2 will be sold using the more traditional subsidy model - which will bring the retail price in line with other vendors.

Lets play "compare and contrast"

Nokia's two-year target for the N-Gage was 9M units.
After two years they had sold 1.3M. 1.3M is quite impressive sales for what has been called the worst-designed piece of consumer electronics ever.

I suspect the audience did not have sufficiently high-taste to appreciate it.

C.

Originally Posted by ArsTechnica

It sounds like Nokia is going to spend less time on hardware design, new distinct handset models, and so forth ... , in favor of more and better software.

Originally Posted by solipsism

It looks like there is a [backlit display] at the end of the tunnel for Sapporobaby.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...t-company.html

Originally Posted by samab

The iphone didn't do too well in the US either --- if you just look at the activation numbers.

If AT&T did 900K and O2 did 200K --- and the US has 5x the population of UK --- then you will know that the US numbers are not that great to begin with.

Originally Posted by TenoBell

Comparing population sizes does give any context to whether sales are good or not. Generally good sales are measured by profits.

You have said this many times but still have given any solid context. The iPhone sells at a premium far above what the average American pays for mobile phone service. What other phone that sells for $450 with a $90 contract sold better than the iPhone over Christmas?

Looking at the large gains in Apple's revenues and profits, how can you call the iPhone anything but a success.

Originally Posted by sapporobaby

Oh come now Tenobell. remember when I mentioned moving the goal posts? Game, set, match.

You know as well as everyone here that we are talking about the iPod Touch. Minus the all the other iPods and leaving only the Touch, the iPhone is nothing more than a Touch with telephone capabilities. Thus you have proven my point for once and for all. Check and mate.

To sum up, the iPhone is nothing more than a Touch with a phone. Discussion concluded on this point.