'Just like Apple couldn't figure out the MP3 player market....
OH...I mean OK they're a hardware company I guess then....so yeah jsut like they couldn't figure out a reasonable and successful online music distribution/marketplace......OH... I mean...then bricks and mortar sale points.....er... I .... Uh.....niner....'
Buddy. It's called inovation. It's why PALM has dropped to $16 in the last 5 years and AAPL has increased 800%. Thanks for playing.....
Its possible that he is just brushing off Apple, but it seems that corporate executives (and politicians) all spin PR propaganda and FUD to support their agenda or best interests, even though they know its not the truth. They claim that everything they're doing is the greatest thing and the other guy is a loser.
CEO's are pretty much like politicians now in that regard. 24-hour financial news cycles, the continuing popular romance with the stock market and outrageous bonuses have made them more important as spin-meisters than managers. Jobs is the perfectest example.
You can at least vote a politician out of office, you have to wait years for the market or board room to do the same.
``We've 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. They're not going to just walk in.''
A "Hollywood moment" we are quite apt to remember for some time. This poor chap is quite likely to be remembered for hoisting himself on his own pitard with this one pithy comment than for all his other corporate achievements. \
Good point. But it still remains that an Apple SmartPhonePDA would have to have high compatibility with Office and Outlook, maybe LDAP (??) and stuff.
For institutional users, yes. Less important for most other users who just want a good?fun?phone.
I would like to see an Apple phone build up a catalog of programs like those Palm and Windows Mobile has. I'm pretty sure that the developers of those programs would move them to an Apple product if Apple made that possible with a PDA-like product, based on X.
I'm also sure that Apple developers would do as well.
I like this guy. Why people think apple will have the same type of success with a phone as they did with the iPod is beyond me.
This guy is smug, but Steve has the same attitude when someone mentions a "iPod Killer" music player.
Cellphone/Smartphones will be the end of iPods.\
I'll give you one reason why.
Because almost everyone I speak to about this, says that they would buy an Apple phone if they could get it. That covers a bunch of people from different walks of life. All of my daughters friends said that to me, as have my friends, whether they have money or not. Of course, that mostly accounts for people here in NYC, but not all.
How? Music playback capability of current mobile phones is even worse than the worst of the Digital Music Players that failed against the iPod & they're not getting any better because their concepts are weak/non-existent.
That said the iPod needs to evolve to meet demands of device consolidation and feedback from polls here is that mobile phones are getting too complex for the average punter. The PDA's open-platform-waiting-for-good-software line probably won't help this but an iPod-like application-specific device (consolidating a few apps) is likely to be the answer.
As Bill Gates fades into retirement, so does his technology/chaos-driven approach which has left us with technology that could & should do everything but is generally unuseful. The public is starting to demand excellence from tech products and Apple are one of the few companies who can actually deliver. We'll see but I'm buying.8)
How? Music playback capability of current mobile phones is even worse than the worst of the Digital Music Players that failed against the iPod & they're not getting any better because their concepts are weak/non-existent.
That said the iPod needs to evolve to meet demands of device consolidation and feedback from polls here is that mobile phones are getting too complex for the average punter. The PDA's open-platform-waiting-for-good-software line probably won't help this but an iPod-like application-specific device (consolidating a few apps) is likely to be the answer.
As Bill Gates fades into retirement, so does his technology/chaos-driven approach which has left us with technology that could & should do everything but is generally unuseful. The public is starting to demand excellence from tech products and Apple are one of the few companies who can actually deliver. We'll see but I'm buying.8)
McD
Don't ever make an assumption about future products based on the poor performance of those present today. That has always been a big mistake.
You can't say that the concepts are weak, etc. You don't know what those concepts are. You just see the products that they can produce now. You don't know what they have in mind for the future. My Treo is a pretty fair music player, though I don't use it much for that.
There's the old concept of walking before you can run.
It's difficult to integrate all of these functions into one device. But, it will progress until someone does it right. Hopefully, that someone will be Apple.
Look to the mp3 players themselves. Until the iPod came along, they weren't really fun to use, except in a geeky way. But now, all of the players that are big enough to have one, have a screen large enough to have a very usable menuing system.
PC DOS wasn't fun either. But first Xerox, and then Apple, showed a better way, and now all computers have a good interface?even Linux.
The model T wasn't a great car, but it got things going.
Quicktime was a joke when it first came out. 160 x 120 at 15 frames/sec, with 8 bit mono sound. Many people didn't think that had much of a future either, except as a novelty.
I doubt that Bell thought of PDA cellphones when he called to Watson.
Hilarious. Colligan runs Palm into the ground and then he seriously thinks other people should listen to him?!?
He hasn't really run it into the ground...they're finally starting to become viable again (thanks to Windows Mobile).
But maybe I'm just saying this because I've owned two Treo 650s, a Treo 700p (yeah that one was junk, but 650 was best phone ever), and now a Treo 700wx..
I've owned two Treo 650s, a Treo 700p (yeah that one was junk, but 650 was best phone ever), and now a Treo 700wx..
I bought the 600 about a year and a half ago to replace a broken (physically) basic phone, it worked reasonably well for about 3 months, then started to have a horrid buzz that got progressivly worse as I used it. After about a month of that, it was completely useless as a phone, and I bought another basic replacement phone. I will never, ever purchase another product from Palm again.
I would really like to have "just a phone" that actually works well and is EASY TO USE. For some reason, phone companies think everyone wants all these features that the customer will rarely - if ever - use, like a camera. And why does everything have to be burried in multiple obscure menus that make navigation frustrating?
If Apple makes an iPhone, I will certainly enjoy music playback, but the feature I will want the most, is an easy to use interface that gets out of the way of useability.
I would really like to have "just a phone" that actually works well and is EASY TO USE. For some reason, phone companies think everyone wants all these features that the customer will rarely - if ever - use, like a camera.
I should break it to you. A lot of people do use the camera feature, many of them use it very often. Just because you would not or don't use it doesn't mean that the typical customer won't. I really doubt it even adds a tangible cost to the phone above the cost of a Pepsi. The same phone without a camera might even cost more than a phone with camera now because of economies of scale.
He hasn't really run it into the ground...they're finally starting to become viable again (thanks to Windows Mobile).
But maybe I'm just saying this because I've owned two Treo 650s, a Treo 700p (yeah that one was junk, but 650 was best phone ever), and now a Treo 700wx..
That's funny. Most people, and reviewers, seem to think the 700p is a very good phone, and that the 700wx is junk. The 700p also corrects many of the well known problems of the 650.
Apple must realize they have more of a battle in the mobile phone market than they did in the digital music player market. Mobile phones are an established ubiquitous accessory, much like iPods are today. The advantage Apple offers is a more tightly integrated product. Those who carry a mobile phone and an iPod now need only carry one device, if we are to believe the rumors.
One "killer app" to sell these would be a small utility within iTunes that lets users create their own ringtones as clips of songs in their Libraries. Gone would be the need to spend far too much money for a brief clip of a song, and users would have a larger choice of ringtones.
Apple should get their toes wet with something on the small media player end for six months before trying anything like the Treo and Sidekick. Of course, if Home on iPod is being resurrected, this could very well indicate that Apple has a Sidekick-type device in the works.
Hmmm. Mac OS X Mobile. Sounds sexy.
But seriously, I foresee yet another means for Apple to shill for .Mac. The (big) iPhone would allow one to interoperate with .Mac over the internet using Mac OS X Mobile.
Apple must realize they have more of a battle in the mobile phone market than they did in the digital music player market. Mobile phones are an established ubiquitous accessory, much like iPods are today. The advantage Apple offers is a more tightly integrated product. Those who carry a mobile phone and an iPod now need only carry one device, if we are to believe the rumors.
Nope. Been able to do that for some time with Walkman phones which are really quite good. There's a squillion different MP3 players on Nokia and SE Symbian phones too, some of which are really very good. Apple has no advantage real there. It's only advantage, like the iPod, is iTunes on Mac and Windows. The PC software side of the phone world is pretty dismal. That's where Apple will battle and yes, they've a huge battle on their hands.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Squirrel_Monkey
One "killer app" to sell these would be a small utility within iTunes that lets users create their own ringtones as clips of songs in their Libraries. Gone would be the need to spend far too much money for a brief clip of a song, and users would have a larger choice of ringtones.
Nope. Been able to do that for 4 years or so already. Almost all recent phones let you play mp3s as ringtones uploaded over bluetooth. My current phone has 'Hate' by the Wedding Present when my private line rings and 'Duelling Banjos' when one of my customers ring on line 2. Barry White when my partner rings. :-)
There's quite a trade in mp3s with the kids too. They'd sit there swapping them with their friends all afternoon if I let them at iTunes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Squirrel_Monkey
Apple should get their toes wet with something on the small media player end for six months before trying anything like the Treo and Sidekick. Of course, if Home on iPod is being resurrected, this could very well indicate that Apple has a Sidekick-type device in the works.
The Walkman phones are the obvious target. Then the WinMo/Blackberry smart phones. Apple can't be seen to be an also-ran. 'Home on iPod' is a Mac only feature too. That's not going to sell 12 million phones.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Squirrel_Monkey
Hmmm. Mac OS X Mobile. Sounds sexy.
If they do put OSX on a phone, I'm almost certainly not buying one. It'll be one hungry mess of an OS and totally inappropriate to the device, just like WinMo.
I can just imagine the 150MB firmware updates.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Squirrel_Monkey
But seriously, I foresee yet another means for Apple to shill for .Mac. The (big) iPhone would allow one to interoperate with .Mac over the internet using Mac OS X Mobile.
And will be doomed to the sidelines as it won't work with Windows. I'm sure Apple have learned their lessons with the iPod. If you want to make money, get Windows users to buy it. Sure, offer better Mac integration but you've got to take it mainstream.
Nope. Been able to do that for some time with Walkman phones which are really quite good. There's a squillion different MP3 players on Nokia and SE Symbian phones too, some of which are really very good. Apple has no advantage real there. It's only advantage, like the iPod, is iTunes on Mac and Windows. The PC software side of the phone world is pretty dismal. That's where Apple will battle and yes, they've a huge battle on their hands.
Nope. Been able to do that for 4 years or so already. Almost all recent phones let you play mp3s as ringtones uploaded over bluetooth. My current phone has 'Hate' by the Wedding Present when my private line rings and 'Duelling Banjos' when one of my customers ring on line 2. Barry White when my partner rings. :-)
I think you need to reread the post you responded to. You nope'd a lot of stuff off the cuff but you were talking on a different point. Gotta keep your thought process straight lest we all see your confusion. Just because Walkman phones exist doesn't change the challenge Apple faces, those phones are just another item in the marketplace with crappy support. Apple doesn't separate the hardware from the software, they are a whole system.
And nop'ing the killer app idea because a lousy partial (and extra cost) version has existed for several years is just as shortsighted as dissing the iPod at the start. Sure the marketplace had mp3 players for several years before iPod, but they were crappily supported. The total system was new and Apple knew they were coming with the coup de gras iTunes Store long before the first iPod shipped. The total system enables the potential killer app, exactly because nobody else has been able to execute adequately yet. You also missed that the ringtones could be selected on the phone from existing music, not paid for and downloaded separately. Personally I'm not sure that that constitutes a killer app, but at least I can read and respond to the post as it was written, not off on some arcane tangent.
Quote:
The Walkman phones are the obvious target. Then the WinMo/Blackberry smart phones. Apple can't be seen to be an also-ran. 'Home on iPod' is a Mac only feature too. That's not going to sell 12 million phones.
Probably not, but it might sell an extra few thousand Macs once new people fell in love with the phone. Always with the negative vibes.
Quote:
If they do put OSX on a phone, I'm almost certainly not buying one. It'll be one hungry mess of an OS and totally inappropriate to the device, just like WinMo.
I can just imagine the 150MB firmware updates.
You obviously have exactly zero idea of OS design and the actual size of the OS X kernel. OS X on the desktop only has an ~8MB kernel, the mobile version which would need to support a mere fraction of the boot hardware should only take a meg or two. Just about everything else you see in a desktop OS is fluff to make life easier in a general purpose world. As a hardware abstracted kernel architecture OS X has vast advantages in repurposing over an older Windows build, enough of an advantage that the entire argument falls apart
Quote:
And will be doomed to the sidelines as it won't work with Windows. I'm sure Apple have learned their lessons with the iPod. If you want to make money, get Windows users to buy it. Sure, offer better Mac integration but you've got to take it mainstream.
Not necessarily. You don't need OS X to use all the .Mac functionality, there are Windows .Mac tools already. A seriously better version of those reduce the Mac only argument to rubble, although they would probably need to call the phone version something other than .Mac.
You obviously have exactly zero idea of OS design and the actual size of the OS X kernel. OS X on the desktop only has an ~8MB kernel, the mobile version which would need to support a mere fraction of the boot hardware should only take a meg or two. Just about everything else you see in a desktop OS is fluff to make life easier in a general purpose world. As a hardware abstracted kernel architecture OS X has vast advantages in repurposing over an older Windows build, enough of an advantage that the entire argument falls apart
Aegis wasn't talking about the kernel size, so I don't understand that point. OS X as an operating system consumes a lot of screen real estate and OS X software consumes a tremendous amount of CPU power and memory. The UI is not likely going to look as good or be as usable without significant changes. I would be surprised if they don't just improve the iPod's OS rather than do a hack-and-slash on a general purpose OS.
I think you need to reread the post you responded to.
Ditto.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hiro
You nope'd a lot of stuff off the cuff but you were talking on a different point.
I wasn't. It was exactly the point. You just missed it in two posts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hiro
Gotta keep your thought process straight lest we all see your confusion. Just because Walkman phones exist doesn't change the challenge Apple faces, those phones are just another item in the marketplace with crappy support.
Walkman phones are far from crappy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hiro
Apple doesn't separate the hardware from the software, they are a whole system.
Which was exactly the point I made. Some of the phone companies also get that too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hiro
And nop'ing the killer app idea because a lousy partial (and extra cost) version has existed for several years is just as shortsighted as dissing the iPod at the start.
Where did I say mp3 ringtones cost money?
They're totally free on every carrier in the UK. We don't have carriers blocking mp3 support or disabling OBEX via bluetooth.
Of course you can buy them too via SMS and many, many people without computers do, at ridiculous cost.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hiro
Sure the marketplace had mp3 players for several years before iPod, but they were crappily supported. The total system was new and Apple knew they were coming with the coup de gras iTunes Store long before the first iPod shipped. The total system enables the potential killer app, exactly because nobody else has been able to execute adequately yet.
Apple didn't have a total system for some years after the iPod launch and it wasn't until they delivered iTunes on Windows that the popularity grew.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hiro
You also missed that the ringtones could be selected on the phone from existing music, not paid for and downloaded separately.
No, I didn't because that's what we've got already in the UK from every carrier going. That's what I currently do with my phones. I've an iTunes smartlist set at 400MB of random tracks which I export to my phone's 512MB card and then stick in the phone. It plays AAC, MP3, even podcasts and MP4 movies.
I can bluetooth them over too but it's incredibly slow.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hiro
Personally I'm not sure that that constitutes a killer app, but at least I can read and respond to the post as it was written, not off on some arcane tangent.
I'm not sure it's a killer app either since we've had it here for half a decade already, since before the iPod even. I wasn't going off on some arcane tangent. I was stating what is already available outside the USA and what has been available for some time. If Apple came out with something we've already had for years they'd be laughed off.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hiro
Probably not, but it might sell an extra few thousand Macs once new people fell in love with the phone. Always with the negative vibes.
Just stating reality here. Your home folder on your phone isn't going to be a big seller. My Home folder is currently 190GB so a little impractical anyway. To me it seems as useful a feature as Microsoft's 'My Briefcase'.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hiro
You obviously have exactly zero idea of OS design and the actual size of the OS X kernel. OS X on the desktop only has an ~8MB kernel, the mobile version which would need to support a mere fraction of the boot hardware should only take a meg or two. Just about everything else you see in a desktop OS is fluff to make life easier in a general purpose world. As a hardware abstracted kernel architecture OS X has vast advantages in repurposing over an older Windows build, enough of an advantage that the entire argument falls apart
I was building hypervisors in assembly language whilst you were in school probably. The entire ROM space for Symbian is less than 8MB including the kernel, radio stack and phone software. OSX isn't going to get that small and tight. I'm not saying it has to be but obviously with larger system requirements the phones aren't going to be as cheap either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hiro
Not necessarily. You don't need OS X to use all the .Mac functionality, there are Windows .Mac tools already. A seriously better version of those reduce the Mac only argument to rubble, although they would probably need to call the phone version something other than .Mac.
And make it free like Google. I really can't see why anyone pays for .Mac.
The point being, I'm sure Apple could make a fantastic vertically integrated phone/iTunes/Addressbook/iCal/iPhoto/iWeb/iChat but when it boils down to cold hard cash, those features mean nothing to Windows users who don't have the software on their PC. Remember when iPods shipped with MusicMatch and you needed to add a firewire card? Slow going.
Now I don't really care if they add the PC software side - I last bought Windows in 1999 - and MacOSX integration is all I want but that's obviously not going to be what the phone is about if they plan to sell 12 million in 6 months.
Comments
...
Colligan:
'Just like Apple couldn't figure out the MP3 player market....
OH...I mean OK they're a hardware company I guess then....so yeah jsut like they couldn't figure out a reasonable and successful online music distribution/marketplace......OH... I mean...then bricks and mortar sale points.....er... I .... Uh.....niner....'
Buddy. It's called inovation. It's why PALM has dropped to $16 in the last 5 years and AAPL has increased 800%. Thanks for playing.....
EDIT: Apple - don't cube us!
Its possible that he is just brushing off Apple, but it seems that corporate executives (and politicians) all spin PR propaganda and FUD to support their agenda or best interests, even though they know its not the truth. They claim that everything they're doing is the greatest thing and the other guy is a loser.
CEO's are pretty much like politicians now in that regard. 24-hour financial news cycles, the continuing popular romance with the stock market and outrageous bonuses have made them more important as spin-meisters than managers. Jobs is the perfectest example.
You can at least vote a politician out of office, you have to wait years for the market or board room to do the same.
Palm CEO Ed Colligan:
``We've 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. They're not going to just walk in.''
A "Hollywood moment" we are quite apt to remember for some time. This poor chap is quite likely to be remembered for hoisting himself on his own pitard with this one pithy comment than for all his other corporate achievements.
hahahaha
.
Buddy. It's called inovation. It's why PALM has dropped to $16 in the last 5 years and AAPL has increased 800%. Thanks for playing.....
I agree with the general point, but actually, in the last 5 years, Palm doubled from about $8 to $16.
The more interesting comparison is from early 2000: Palm was selling for about $800 (now $16), while Apple was in the mid-30s (now 90).
Good point. But it still remains that an Apple SmartPhonePDA would have to have high compatibility with Office and Outlook, maybe LDAP (??) and stuff.
For institutional users, yes. Less important for most other users who just want a good?fun?phone.
I would like to see an Apple phone build up a catalog of programs like those Palm and Windows Mobile has. I'm pretty sure that the developers of those programs would move them to an Apple product if Apple made that possible with a PDA-like product, based on X.
I'm also sure that Apple developers would do as well.
I like this guy. Why people think apple will have the same type of success with a phone as they did with the iPod is beyond me.
This guy is smug, but Steve has the same attitude when someone mentions a "iPod Killer" music player.
Cellphone/Smartphones will be the end of iPods.
I'll give you one reason why.
Because almost everyone I speak to about this, says that they would buy an Apple phone if they could get it. That covers a bunch of people from different walks of life. All of my daughters friends said that to me, as have my friends, whether they have money or not. Of course, that mostly accounts for people here in NYC, but not all.
Cellphone/Smartphones will be the end of iPods.
How? Music playback capability of current mobile phones is even worse than the worst of the Digital Music Players that failed against the iPod & they're not getting any better because their concepts are weak/non-existent.
That said the iPod needs to evolve to meet demands of device consolidation and feedback from polls here is that mobile phones are getting too complex for the average punter. The PDA's open-platform-waiting-for-good-software line probably won't help this but an iPod-like application-specific device (consolidating a few apps) is likely to be the answer.
As Bill Gates fades into retirement, so does his technology/chaos-driven approach which has left us with technology that could & should do everything but is generally unuseful. The public is starting to demand excellence from tech products and Apple are one of the few companies who can actually deliver. We'll see but I'm buying.8)
McD
How? Music playback capability of current mobile phones is even worse than the worst of the Digital Music Players that failed against the iPod & they're not getting any better because their concepts are weak/non-existent.
That said the iPod needs to evolve to meet demands of device consolidation and feedback from polls here is that mobile phones are getting too complex for the average punter. The PDA's open-platform-waiting-for-good-software line probably won't help this but an iPod-like application-specific device (consolidating a few apps) is likely to be the answer.
As Bill Gates fades into retirement, so does his technology/chaos-driven approach which has left us with technology that could & should do everything but is generally unuseful. The public is starting to demand excellence from tech products and Apple are one of the few companies who can actually deliver. We'll see but I'm buying.8)
McD
Don't ever make an assumption about future products based on the poor performance of those present today. That has always been a big mistake.
You can't say that the concepts are weak, etc. You don't know what those concepts are. You just see the products that they can produce now. You don't know what they have in mind for the future. My Treo is a pretty fair music player, though I don't use it much for that.
There's the old concept of walking before you can run.
It's difficult to integrate all of these functions into one device. But, it will progress until someone does it right. Hopefully, that someone will be Apple.
Look to the mp3 players themselves. Until the iPod came along, they weren't really fun to use, except in a geeky way. But now, all of the players that are big enough to have one, have a screen large enough to have a very usable menuing system.
PC DOS wasn't fun either. But first Xerox, and then Apple, showed a better way, and now all computers have a good interface?even Linux.
The model T wasn't a great car, but it got things going.
Quicktime was a joke when it first came out. 160 x 120 at 15 frames/sec, with 8 bit mono sound. Many people didn't think that had much of a future either, except as a novelty.
I doubt that Bell thought of PDA cellphones when he called to Watson.
but is generally unuseful
I'd even go further and call it "useless"
Speaking of Palm: When will versiontracker.com finally get rid of the Palm OS section? Feels kind of obsolete in 2006...
Hilarious. Colligan runs Palm into the ground and then he seriously thinks other people should listen to him?!?
He hasn't really run it into the ground...they're finally starting to become viable again (thanks to Windows Mobile).
But maybe I'm just saying this because I've owned two Treo 650s, a Treo 700p (yeah that one was junk, but 650 was best phone ever), and now a Treo 700wx..
I've owned two Treo 650s, a Treo 700p (yeah that one was junk, but 650 was best phone ever), and now a Treo 700wx..
I bought the 600 about a year and a half ago to replace a broken (physically) basic phone, it worked reasonably well for about 3 months, then started to have a horrid buzz that got progressivly worse as I used it. After about a month of that, it was completely useless as a phone, and I bought another basic replacement phone. I will never, ever purchase another product from Palm again.
I would really like to have "just a phone" that actually works well and is EASY TO USE. For some reason, phone companies think everyone wants all these features that the customer will rarely - if ever - use, like a camera. And why does everything have to be burried in multiple obscure menus that make navigation frustrating?
If Apple makes an iPhone, I will certainly enjoy music playback, but the feature I will want the most, is an easy to use interface that gets out of the way of useability.
I would really like to have "just a phone" that actually works well and is EASY TO USE. For some reason, phone companies think everyone wants all these features that the customer will rarely - if ever - use, like a camera.
I should break it to you. A lot of people do use the camera feature, many of them use it very often. Just because you would not or don't use it doesn't mean that the typical customer won't. I really doubt it even adds a tangible cost to the phone above the cost of a Pepsi. The same phone without a camera might even cost more than a phone with camera now because of economies of scale.
He hasn't really run it into the ground...they're finally starting to become viable again (thanks to Windows Mobile).
But maybe I'm just saying this because I've owned two Treo 650s, a Treo 700p (yeah that one was junk, but 650 was best phone ever), and now a Treo 700wx..
That's funny. Most people, and reviewers, seem to think the 700p is a very good phone, and that the 700wx is junk. The 700p also corrects many of the well known problems of the 650.
He hasn't really run it into the ground...they're finally starting to become viable again (thanks to Windows Mobile).....
Windows Mobile is going to save Palm's ass. Well, glad to see they're still around, I guess.
One "killer app" to sell these would be a small utility within iTunes that lets users create their own ringtones as clips of songs in their Libraries. Gone would be the need to spend far too much money for a brief clip of a song, and users would have a larger choice of ringtones.
Apple should get their toes wet with something on the small media player end for six months before trying anything like the Treo and Sidekick. Of course, if Home on iPod is being resurrected, this could very well indicate that Apple has a Sidekick-type device in the works.
Hmmm. Mac OS X Mobile. Sounds sexy.
But seriously, I foresee yet another means for Apple to shill for .Mac. The (big) iPhone would allow one to interoperate with .Mac over the internet using Mac OS X Mobile.
Apple must realize they have more of a battle in the mobile phone market than they did in the digital music player market. Mobile phones are an established ubiquitous accessory, much like iPods are today. The advantage Apple offers is a more tightly integrated product. Those who carry a mobile phone and an iPod now need only carry one device, if we are to believe the rumors.
Nope. Been able to do that for some time with Walkman phones which are really quite good. There's a squillion different MP3 players on Nokia and SE Symbian phones too, some of which are really very good. Apple has no advantage real there. It's only advantage, like the iPod, is iTunes on Mac and Windows. The PC software side of the phone world is pretty dismal. That's where Apple will battle and yes, they've a huge battle on their hands.
One "killer app" to sell these would be a small utility within iTunes that lets users create their own ringtones as clips of songs in their Libraries. Gone would be the need to spend far too much money for a brief clip of a song, and users would have a larger choice of ringtones.
Nope. Been able to do that for 4 years or so already. Almost all recent phones let you play mp3s as ringtones uploaded over bluetooth. My current phone has 'Hate' by the Wedding Present when my private line rings and 'Duelling Banjos' when one of my customers ring on line 2. Barry White when my partner rings. :-)
There's quite a trade in mp3s with the kids too. They'd sit there swapping them with their friends all afternoon if I let them at iTunes.
Apple should get their toes wet with something on the small media player end for six months before trying anything like the Treo and Sidekick. Of course, if Home on iPod is being resurrected, this could very well indicate that Apple has a Sidekick-type device in the works.
The Walkman phones are the obvious target. Then the WinMo/Blackberry smart phones. Apple can't be seen to be an also-ran. 'Home on iPod' is a Mac only feature too. That's not going to sell 12 million phones.
Hmmm. Mac OS X Mobile. Sounds sexy.
If they do put OSX on a phone, I'm almost certainly not buying one. It'll be one hungry mess of an OS and totally inappropriate to the device, just like WinMo.
I can just imagine the 150MB firmware updates.
But seriously, I foresee yet another means for Apple to shill for .Mac. The (big) iPhone would allow one to interoperate with .Mac over the internet using Mac OS X Mobile.
And will be doomed to the sidelines as it won't work with Windows. I'm sure Apple have learned their lessons with the iPod. If you want to make money, get Windows users to buy it. Sure, offer better Mac integration but you've got to take it mainstream.
Nope. Been able to do that for some time with Walkman phones which are really quite good. There's a squillion different MP3 players on Nokia and SE Symbian phones too, some of which are really very good. Apple has no advantage real there. It's only advantage, like the iPod, is iTunes on Mac and Windows. The PC software side of the phone world is pretty dismal. That's where Apple will battle and yes, they've a huge battle on their hands.
Nope. Been able to do that for 4 years or so already. Almost all recent phones let you play mp3s as ringtones uploaded over bluetooth. My current phone has 'Hate' by the Wedding Present when my private line rings and 'Duelling Banjos' when one of my customers ring on line 2. Barry White when my partner rings. :-)
I think you need to reread the post you responded to. You nope'd a lot of stuff off the cuff but you were talking on a different point. Gotta keep your thought process straight lest we all see your confusion. Just because Walkman phones exist doesn't change the challenge Apple faces, those phones are just another item in the marketplace with crappy support. Apple doesn't separate the hardware from the software, they are a whole system.
And nop'ing the killer app idea because a lousy partial (and extra cost) version has existed for several years is just as shortsighted as dissing the iPod at the start. Sure the marketplace had mp3 players for several years before iPod, but they were crappily supported. The total system was new and Apple knew they were coming with the coup de gras iTunes Store long before the first iPod shipped. The total system enables the potential killer app, exactly because nobody else has been able to execute adequately yet. You also missed that the ringtones could be selected on the phone from existing music, not paid for and downloaded separately. Personally I'm not sure that that constitutes a killer app, but at least I can read and respond to the post as it was written, not off on some arcane tangent.
The Walkman phones are the obvious target. Then the WinMo/Blackberry smart phones. Apple can't be seen to be an also-ran. 'Home on iPod' is a Mac only feature too. That's not going to sell 12 million phones.
Probably not, but it might sell an extra few thousand Macs once new people fell in love with the phone. Always with the negative vibes.
If they do put OSX on a phone, I'm almost certainly not buying one. It'll be one hungry mess of an OS and totally inappropriate to the device, just like WinMo.
I can just imagine the 150MB firmware updates.
You obviously have exactly zero idea of OS design and the actual size of the OS X kernel. OS X on the desktop only has an ~8MB kernel, the mobile version which would need to support a mere fraction of the boot hardware should only take a meg or two. Just about everything else you see in a desktop OS is fluff to make life easier in a general purpose world. As a hardware abstracted kernel architecture OS X has vast advantages in repurposing over an older Windows build, enough of an advantage that the entire argument falls apart
And will be doomed to the sidelines as it won't work with Windows. I'm sure Apple have learned their lessons with the iPod. If you want to make money, get Windows users to buy it. Sure, offer better Mac integration but you've got to take it mainstream.
Not necessarily. You don't need OS X to use all the .Mac functionality, there are Windows .Mac tools already. A seriously better version of those reduce the Mac only argument to rubble, although they would probably need to call the phone version something other than .Mac.
You obviously have exactly zero idea of OS design and the actual size of the OS X kernel. OS X on the desktop only has an ~8MB kernel, the mobile version which would need to support a mere fraction of the boot hardware should only take a meg or two. Just about everything else you see in a desktop OS is fluff to make life easier in a general purpose world. As a hardware abstracted kernel architecture OS X has vast advantages in repurposing over an older Windows build, enough of an advantage that the entire argument falls apart
Aegis wasn't talking about the kernel size, so I don't understand that point. OS X as an operating system consumes a lot of screen real estate and OS X software consumes a tremendous amount of CPU power and memory. The UI is not likely going to look as good or be as usable without significant changes. I would be surprised if they don't just improve the iPod's OS rather than do a hack-and-slash on a general purpose OS.
I think you need to reread the post you responded to.
Ditto.
You nope'd a lot of stuff off the cuff but you were talking on a different point.
I wasn't. It was exactly the point. You just missed it in two posts.
Gotta keep your thought process straight lest we all see your confusion. Just because Walkman phones exist doesn't change the challenge Apple faces, those phones are just another item in the marketplace with crappy support.
Walkman phones are far from crappy.
Apple doesn't separate the hardware from the software, they are a whole system.
Which was exactly the point I made. Some of the phone companies also get that too.
And nop'ing the killer app idea because a lousy partial (and extra cost) version has existed for several years is just as shortsighted as dissing the iPod at the start.
Where did I say mp3 ringtones cost money?
They're totally free on every carrier in the UK. We don't have carriers blocking mp3 support or disabling OBEX via bluetooth.
Of course you can buy them too via SMS and many, many people without computers do, at ridiculous cost.
Sure the marketplace had mp3 players for several years before iPod, but they were crappily supported. The total system was new and Apple knew they were coming with the coup de gras iTunes Store long before the first iPod shipped. The total system enables the potential killer app, exactly because nobody else has been able to execute adequately yet.
Apple didn't have a total system for some years after the iPod launch and it wasn't until they delivered iTunes on Windows that the popularity grew.
You also missed that the ringtones could be selected on the phone from existing music, not paid for and downloaded separately.
No, I didn't because that's what we've got already in the UK from every carrier going. That's what I currently do with my phones. I've an iTunes smartlist set at 400MB of random tracks which I export to my phone's 512MB card and then stick in the phone. It plays AAC, MP3, even podcasts and MP4 movies.
I can bluetooth them over too but it's incredibly slow.
Personally I'm not sure that that constitutes a killer app, but at least I can read and respond to the post as it was written, not off on some arcane tangent.
I'm not sure it's a killer app either since we've had it here for half a decade already, since before the iPod even. I wasn't going off on some arcane tangent. I was stating what is already available outside the USA and what has been available for some time. If Apple came out with something we've already had for years they'd be laughed off.
Probably not, but it might sell an extra few thousand Macs once new people fell in love with the phone. Always with the negative vibes.
Just stating reality here. Your home folder on your phone isn't going to be a big seller. My Home folder is currently 190GB so a little impractical anyway. To me it seems as useful a feature as Microsoft's 'My Briefcase'.
You obviously have exactly zero idea of OS design and the actual size of the OS X kernel. OS X on the desktop only has an ~8MB kernel, the mobile version which would need to support a mere fraction of the boot hardware should only take a meg or two. Just about everything else you see in a desktop OS is fluff to make life easier in a general purpose world. As a hardware abstracted kernel architecture OS X has vast advantages in repurposing over an older Windows build, enough of an advantage that the entire argument falls apart
I was building hypervisors in assembly language whilst you were in school probably. The entire ROM space for Symbian is less than 8MB including the kernel, radio stack and phone software. OSX isn't going to get that small and tight. I'm not saying it has to be but obviously with larger system requirements the phones aren't going to be as cheap either.
Not necessarily. You don't need OS X to use all the .Mac functionality, there are Windows .Mac tools already. A seriously better version of those reduce the Mac only argument to rubble, although they would probably need to call the phone version something other than .Mac.
And make it free like Google. I really can't see why anyone pays for .Mac.
The point being, I'm sure Apple could make a fantastic vertically integrated phone/iTunes/Addressbook/iCal/iPhoto/iWeb/iChat but when it boils down to cold hard cash, those features mean nothing to Windows users who don't have the software on their PC. Remember when iPods shipped with MusicMatch and you needed to add a firewire card? Slow going.
Now I don't really care if they add the PC software side - I last bought Windows in 1999 - and MacOSX integration is all I want but that's obviously not going to be what the phone is about if they plan to sell 12 million in 6 months.