Is the FIC-GTA001 just a concept or do they have an actual working model?
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i also again point to the Motorola RAZR as an example, it dominated and its junk, but it was well marketed. I'd also vote up myspace as another example.
But the Razor and MySpace do provide something that others did not. Even if from a technical sense they are not as superior. From a consumer sense they offered what people wanted. The Razor was the thinnest phone and best designed phone when it was first introduced. Myspace allowed the ability to add music and allow people to advertise themselves when other social networking sites did not allow this behavior.
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there were plenty of mp3 players etc in the marketplace beforehand.
None of those mp3 players dominated the market the way the iPod nor Windows currently dominate.
nope, i make commerical games for cellphones, have done for 5 years, and i'm not a linux user either, i mentioned the linux phones as being available thats all.. all the smartphone developers (including myself) i know aren't all that interested in the iphone, because they suspect without any real information apple is going to severely limit who can do what on it like they do for the ipod. Apple might patent a bunch of stuff that could make life for developers harder, and might make us jump through a bunch of hoops to develop for, and it'll be a relatively small userbase, they've already limited themselves to cingular.
There, fixed that for you. Speculation. Nobody knows yet where it's going.
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ease of development, mature api's so the cellphones that are using OS's that have been in development longer than OSX don't have that already?
You do realize, of course, that the Cocoa API extends back 20 years, right? You're off base here.
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I can already easily develop just about anything i want on just about any cellphone, our company has developed a mature api already. But i'm not entirely sure you are qualified to even talk about that.
Naw, you're right, the dozen or so years of using the APIs that the iPhone looks to be using don't qualify me for squat.
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all you're basically saying is you've got no real quantifiable reasoning for why the iphone is better other than its got a touschreen and its a polished UI/useability, which it does, however thats got nothing to do with the original comment about how powerful it is underneath in comparision to other smartphones.
i never said screw the ui or useability, those aren't the points in contention, the points are the relative power of other smartphones.
Power is only as good as the access to it. The interface matters a *lot*.
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But on that personal taste question, I dont yet know that the iphones ui makes it a better phone for me than my nokia, which would cost me $50 to replace, its unlocked, has pop3 email, music, browser, sms, mms, bluetooth, IR, a full flip out keyboard, camera, works in most places in the world, isn't limited to one carrier, talk time up in the 8 hour range, standby time in the order of days, and has a smaller volume, and it makes calls.
*shrug* Whatever makes you happy. Either you believe that the iPhone is a handheld computer disguised as a phone to get access to the cell networks, or you believe it's just a smartphone. I think we're in two different camps on this, and I'm not that interested in changing your perspective. You're welcome to your opinion.
Is the FIC-GTA001 just a concept or do they have an actual working model?
Why would that make a difference? its based on real existing technology, and the concept has been knocking around for ages, showing that its not an Apple revolution or even a unique idea. The link shows pretty much exactly what apple are doing ( as far as i can see ), you can find many many examples of gesture style touchscreens elsewhere.
But regardless, yes its a working model, they've been developer seeded for a while, its also not the only one with it.
You do realize, of course, that the Cocoa API extends back 20 years, right? You're off base here.
Naw, you're right, the dozen or so years of using the APIs that the iPhone looks to be using don't qualify me for squat. Plus you're assuming it is speculation, apple have already confirmed some of the points.
no it doesn't. since you're specualting too, and you're also speculating that the API's used elsewhere haven't been in as use equally as long.
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Power is only as good as the access to it. The interface matters a *lot*.
that suggests existing UI's don't work, they do, perhaps not as well, but again speculation.
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*shrug* Whatever makes you happy.
thats what would make it a personal preference yes.
However it still says nothing about the relative power of the iphone vs other smarthpones, which is whats in contention, not the UI. You said its like comparing computers of decades in years, which is false..
Concept drawings are an entirely different place from a real working product.
yes absolutely they are, but in this instance its proof of a concept thats being claimed to be unique or revolutionary, which it clearly isn't. Which doesn't mean its not good, or anything other than its not unique. There are many handheld tocuhscreens with multiple touch inputs, i myself have worked on one recently for the automtive industry, as well as other gaming platforms.
I'm speculating about the iPhone where, exactly? I'm very willing to state that we don't know pretty much anything about the dev situation with the iPhone. I'm tired of authoritative sounding definitive statements being made that Apple *will* do this, or *won't* do that, when the reality is, we don't know.
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no it doesn't. since you're specualting too, and you're also speculating that the API's used elsewhere haven't been in as use equally as long.
Well hell, why not speculate that the APIs were used on a Zuse Z3 while we're at it? You're the one who said that the iPhone APIs were not mature. I stated otherwise. I never said that the APIs you're using aren't.
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that suggests existing UI's don't work, they do, perhaps not as well, but again speculation.
Current UIs do work - in the same way that using punchcards worked. Yeah, it *works*, but it's not something that people are going to *enjoy* doing. Every smartphone I've tried has felt like it was designed by engineers, for engineers, and the end user is simply expected to make do. ZOMG it has all these features!... none of which are really simple to use, or work the way you'd want, or integrate in the way they should, etc, etc, etc.
I'm sure there will be limitations of the iPhone UI that drive me batty, but just from the simple demos shown, it already looks to be heads and shoulders above any other such device I've tried.
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thats what would make it a personal preference yes.
However it still says nothing about the relative power of the iphone vs other smarthpones, which is whats in contention, not the UI. You said its like comparing computers of decades in years, which is false..
Actually, I was comparing the relative power of the 360 series sold in 1984 to the Mac of 1984. (You do realize that they just stopped selling the 360 architecture machines a couple of years ago, right? The computation power scaled up through the years just fine.) The 360 was a clunky beast to work with, but hot damn it was powerful. The Mac was easy to work with, but seen as a toy. Guess which paradigm has taken over?
If given a choice, people will, unless they're featureitis infected, choose the solution that meets *their* functionality needs, that is easier to use, length of the complete feature list be damned. For instance, I have actively avoided anything other than a simple, stripped down usable cell phone because I'm not going to bother paying for features that are too much of a pain in the ass to use, nor am I willing to pay for a phone that makes basic functionality harder in an effort to be everything to everyone. Usually, this is a direct result of using hardware buttons, in my experience.
Your belief that "but it doesn't have the *power* of these other phones" is sheer speculation at best until actual hardware ships, and irrelevant to market adoption by interface-oriented consumers. People are slowly realizing that technology doesn't have to suck, and Apple is benefiting.
How do *you* define power on a smartphone?
And, if you go back and look, what I said was that the iPhone, as I see it, has a lot more *potential* than the competition, not more power. The power issue came up when trying to point out through the 360/Mac analogy that raw power != potential through interface changes. Power is great. Power you can't use is useless.
As I see it, current smartphones are designed by saying "Okay, so we have a cell phone..." and going from there, tacking on features. If the consumer is *very* lucky, it starts with "Okay, so we have a thumbboard with a screen...", but again, features get hung off of this basic framework that wasn't really designed for them. Cell first, other things much later. Catering to cell companies a must.
At the other end of the spectrum, you have UMPCs and the like, designed by saying "Okay, so we have a desktop machine..." and then trying to shrink it down. Cell integration is an afterthought, and feels like it. If you're very lucky, you might be able to get a way to hook into a cell network for voice. Don't count on it though.
What Apple is doing is a Trojan Horse on the cell industry. They're calling it a phone + some neat features, but really it's a UMPC + cell. Not tacked on, integrated. They also didn't try and replicate a desktop experience on a handheld, they rethought it, but are reusing the very mature OS codebase and APIs they have already. From my perspective, this makes cell networks just another WiFi-style network, and utterly shatters their business model. If this had been pushed as a handheld, the cell companies wouldn't have let it anywhere near their networks. As it is, I think that we're going to see developer access opened up very rapidly. Look at Dashcode, their new IDE for creating Dashboard widgets for Leopard. They're *really* wanting people to adopt it... now we know why. Widgets should, speculatively, run on the iPhone without change. They're perfect for it. Small UI, net access focus, data retrieval... I expect to see Apple QA'd widgets on the iTunes Store ASAP.
I for one, believe that this 50% margin number was pulled out of someone's ass. It is completely made up and has absolutely no basis in reality whatsoever.
Not only is Apple going to make you jump through hoops, they are going make you be a paying partner if you want to develop software for the Apple Phone.
Not only is Apple going to make you jump through hoops, they are going make you be a paying partner if you want to develop software for the Apple Phone.
You can also bet that all software will only be available via iTunes.
Just search on iPhone and 3rd party and you will see many confirmations of this.
Jorgie
Sure, because the security guy REALLY knew what he was talking about..........
The amount of people talking straight out of their ass about the iPhone is truly astonishing. And we've go five more months of this to go!.
My friend's hairdresser's bookie totally knows this guy who says the iPhone, in addition to a 2 year Cingular contract, requires 10 cc's of you and your first born child's blood.
Do you think every European carrier is going to change their network (voicemail change, plus potentially others) just to get a chance to sell the iPhone. If the carrier were to get an exclusive like Cingular did, then they might.
The iPhone requires a change to existing networks.
No, Visual Voicemail requires that - the iPhone does not.
Visual Voicemail will just be a feature that won't work on some networks.
No, Visual Voicemail requires that - the iPhone does not.
Visual Voicemail will just be a feature that won't work on some networks.
You are correct in that the iPhone itself doesn't require it, but I think the OP meant that Apple will require it? I doubt they will partner with a carrier UNLESS they agree to add Visual Voicemail to their service.
Phones with VGA screens do exist, iPhone uses a lower rez (fewer dots) screen. The iPhone's screen is the same size (I think) and rez (I know) as my Tapwave PDA. Tapwave isn't a phone, but there's nothing about the screen that says that it couldn't be used in a phone.
I for one, believe that this 50% margin number was pulled out of someone's ass. It is completely made up and has absolutely no basis in reality whatsoever.
It's not out of line. All the iPods have about that gross margin. The problem is that gross margin only considers about 50-70% of Apple's expenses, just the cost of the physical pieces.
Is the FIC-GTA001 just a concept or do they have an actual working model?
All I've seen are renders, but I don't think it matters. In my opinion, FIC is not worth dealing with. Their FIC and ECS brands (among others) are the worst brands of any kind that I can think of, save maybe Enron and the like.
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From a consumer sense they offered what people wanted. The Razor was the thinnest phone and best designed phone when it was first introduced.
RAZR is/was the thinnest phone in the US, I've heard that there are several thinner phones are available in Japan and Korea. I think it got pretty popular because the cost went down a lot.
I for one, believe that this 50% margin number was pulled out of someone's ass. It is completely made up and has absolutely no basis in reality whatsoever.
Good point.
Quite apart from that, even if were a correct number, "gross margin" is an utterly meaningless metric (ranks right up there with "EBITDA").
Comments
i also again point to the Motorola RAZR as an example, it dominated and its junk, but it was well marketed. I'd also vote up myspace as another example.
But the Razor and MySpace do provide something that others did not. Even if from a technical sense they are not as superior. From a consumer sense they offered what people wanted. The Razor was the thinnest phone and best designed phone when it was first introduced. Myspace allowed the ability to add music and allow people to advertise themselves when other social networking sites did not allow this behavior.
there were plenty of mp3 players etc in the marketplace beforehand.
None of those mp3 players dominated the market the way the iPod nor Windows currently dominate.
nope, i make commerical games for cellphones, have done for 5 years, and i'm not a linux user either, i mentioned the linux phones as being available thats all.. all the smartphone developers (including myself) i know aren't all that interested in the iphone, because they suspect without any real information apple is going to severely limit who can do what on it like they do for the ipod. Apple might patent a bunch of stuff that could make life for developers harder, and might make us jump through a bunch of hoops to develop for, and it'll be a relatively small userbase, they've already limited themselves to cingular.
There, fixed that for you. Speculation. Nobody knows yet where it's going.
ease of development, mature api's so the cellphones that are using OS's that have been in development longer than OSX don't have that already?
You do realize, of course, that the Cocoa API extends back 20 years, right? You're off base here.
I can already easily develop just about anything i want on just about any cellphone, our company has developed a mature api already. But i'm not entirely sure you are qualified to even talk about that.
Naw, you're right, the dozen or so years of using the APIs that the iPhone looks to be using don't qualify me for squat.
all you're basically saying is you've got no real quantifiable reasoning for why the iphone is better other than its got a touschreen and its a polished UI/useability, which it does, however thats got nothing to do with the original comment about how powerful it is underneath in comparision to other smartphones.
i never said screw the ui or useability, those aren't the points in contention, the points are the relative power of other smartphones.
Power is only as good as the access to it. The interface matters a *lot*.
But on that personal taste question, I dont yet know that the iphones ui makes it a better phone for me than my nokia, which would cost me $50 to replace, its unlocked, has pop3 email, music, browser, sms, mms, bluetooth, IR, a full flip out keyboard, camera, works in most places in the world, isn't limited to one carrier, talk time up in the 8 hour range, standby time in the order of days, and has a smaller volume, and it makes calls.
*shrug* Whatever makes you happy. Either you believe that the iPhone is a handheld computer disguised as a phone to get access to the cell networks, or you believe it's just a smartphone. I think we're in two different camps on this, and I'm not that interested in changing your perspective. You're welcome to your opinion.
Is the FIC-GTA001 just a concept or do they have an actual working model?
Why would that make a difference? its based on real existing technology, and the concept has been knocking around for ages, showing that its not an Apple revolution or even a unique idea. The link shows pretty much exactly what apple are doing ( as far as i can see ), you can find many many examples of gesture style touchscreens elsewhere.
But regardless, yes its a working model, they've been developer seeded for a while, its also not the only one with it.
There, fixed that for you. Speculation.
yet you speculate yourself in the same post ?
You do realize, of course, that the Cocoa API extends back 20 years, right? You're off base here.
Naw, you're right, the dozen or so years of using the APIs that the iPhone looks to be using don't qualify me for squat. Plus you're assuming it is speculation, apple have already confirmed some of the points.
no it doesn't. since you're specualting too, and you're also speculating that the API's used elsewhere haven't been in as use equally as long.
Power is only as good as the access to it. The interface matters a *lot*.
that suggests existing UI's don't work, they do, perhaps not as well, but again speculation.
*shrug* Whatever makes you happy.
thats what would make it a personal preference yes.
However it still says nothing about the relative power of the iphone vs other smarthpones, which is whats in contention, not the UI. You said its like comparing computers of decades in years, which is false..
Why would that make a difference?
Concept drawings are an entirely different place from a real working product.
Concept drawings are an entirely different place from a real working product.
yes absolutely they are, but in this instance its proof of a concept thats being claimed to be unique or revolutionary, which it clearly isn't. Which doesn't mean its not good, or anything other than its not unique. There are many handheld tocuhscreens with multiple touch inputs, i myself have worked on one recently for the automtive industry, as well as other gaming platforms.
Plus in this case, it is actually real hardware.
yet you speculate yourself in the same post ?
I'm speculating about the iPhone where, exactly? I'm very willing to state that we don't know pretty much anything about the dev situation with the iPhone. I'm tired of authoritative sounding definitive statements being made that Apple *will* do this, or *won't* do that, when the reality is, we don't know.
no it doesn't. since you're specualting too, and you're also speculating that the API's used elsewhere haven't been in as use equally as long.
Well hell, why not speculate that the APIs were used on a Zuse Z3 while we're at it? You're the one who said that the iPhone APIs were not mature. I stated otherwise. I never said that the APIs you're using aren't.
that suggests existing UI's don't work, they do, perhaps not as well, but again speculation.
Current UIs do work - in the same way that using punchcards worked. Yeah, it *works*, but it's not something that people are going to *enjoy* doing. Every smartphone I've tried has felt like it was designed by engineers, for engineers, and the end user is simply expected to make do. ZOMG it has all these features!... none of which are really simple to use, or work the way you'd want, or integrate in the way they should, etc, etc, etc.
I'm sure there will be limitations of the iPhone UI that drive me batty, but just from the simple demos shown, it already looks to be heads and shoulders above any other such device I've tried.
thats what would make it a personal preference yes.
However it still says nothing about the relative power of the iphone vs other smarthpones, which is whats in contention, not the UI. You said its like comparing computers of decades in years, which is false..
Actually, I was comparing the relative power of the 360 series sold in 1984 to the Mac of 1984. (You do realize that they just stopped selling the 360 architecture machines a couple of years ago, right? The computation power scaled up through the years just fine.) The 360 was a clunky beast to work with, but hot damn it was powerful. The Mac was easy to work with, but seen as a toy. Guess which paradigm has taken over?
If given a choice, people will, unless they're featureitis infected, choose the solution that meets *their* functionality needs, that is easier to use, length of the complete feature list be damned. For instance, I have actively avoided anything other than a simple, stripped down usable cell phone because I'm not going to bother paying for features that are too much of a pain in the ass to use, nor am I willing to pay for a phone that makes basic functionality harder in an effort to be everything to everyone. Usually, this is a direct result of using hardware buttons, in my experience.
Your belief that "but it doesn't have the *power* of these other phones" is sheer speculation at best until actual hardware ships, and irrelevant to market adoption by interface-oriented consumers. People are slowly realizing that technology doesn't have to suck, and Apple is benefiting.
How do *you* define power on a smartphone?
And, if you go back and look, what I said was that the iPhone, as I see it, has a lot more *potential* than the competition, not more power. The power issue came up when trying to point out through the 360/Mac analogy that raw power != potential through interface changes. Power is great. Power you can't use is useless.
As I see it, current smartphones are designed by saying "Okay, so we have a cell phone..." and going from there, tacking on features. If the consumer is *very* lucky, it starts with "Okay, so we have a thumbboard with a screen...", but again, features get hung off of this basic framework that wasn't really designed for them. Cell first, other things much later. Catering to cell companies a must.
At the other end of the spectrum, you have UMPCs and the like, designed by saying "Okay, so we have a desktop machine..." and then trying to shrink it down. Cell integration is an afterthought, and feels like it. If you're very lucky, you might be able to get a way to hook into a cell network for voice. Don't count on it though.
What Apple is doing is a Trojan Horse on the cell industry. They're calling it a phone + some neat features, but really it's a UMPC + cell. Not tacked on, integrated. They also didn't try and replicate a desktop experience on a handheld, they rethought it, but are reusing the very mature OS codebase and APIs they have already. From my perspective, this makes cell networks just another WiFi-style network, and utterly shatters their business model. If this had been pushed as a handheld, the cell companies wouldn't have let it anywhere near their networks. As it is, I think that we're going to see developer access opened up very rapidly. Look at Dashcode, their new IDE for creating Dashboard widgets for Leopard. They're *really* wanting people to adopt it... now we know why. Widgets should, speculatively, run on the iPhone without change. They're perfect for it. Small UI, net access focus, data retrieval... I expect to see Apple QA'd widgets on the iTunes Store ASAP.
But, it's all speculation at this point.
iphone-will-not-allow-user-installable-applications
You can also bet that all software will only be available via iTunes.
Just search on iPhone and 3rd party and you will see many confirmations of this.
Jorgie
Not only is Apple going to make you jump through hoops, they are going make you be a paying partner if you want to develop software for the Apple Phone.
iphone-will-not-allow-user-installable-applications
You can also bet that all software will only be available via iTunes.
Just search on iPhone and 3rd party and you will see many confirmations of this.
Jorgie
Sure, because the security guy REALLY knew what he was talking about..........
The amount of people talking straight out of their ass about the iPhone is truly astonishing. And we've go five more months of this to go!.
My friend's hairdresser's bookie totally knows this guy who says the iPhone, in addition to a 2 year Cingular contract, requires 10 cc's of you and your first born child's blood.
Do you think every European carrier is going to change their network (voicemail change, plus potentially others) just to get a chance to sell the iPhone. If the carrier were to get an exclusive like Cingular did, then they might.
The iPhone requires a change to existing networks.
No, Visual Voicemail requires that - the iPhone does not.
Visual Voicemail will just be a feature that won't work on some networks.
No, Visual Voicemail requires that - the iPhone does not.
Visual Voicemail will just be a feature that won't work on some networks.
You are correct in that the iPhone itself doesn't require it, but I think the OP meant that Apple will require it? I doubt they will partner with a carrier UNLESS they agree to add Visual Voicemail to their service.
Does a generic touchscreen support "multi-touch" or does it have to be customized to support more than one touch at a time?
Also, this accounting does not include the costs of buying Multi-Touch intellectual property.
Does it have a high resolution screen?
Phones with VGA screens do exist, iPhone uses a lower rez (fewer dots) screen. The iPhone's screen is the same size (I think) and rez (I know) as my Tapwave PDA. Tapwave isn't a phone, but there's nothing about the screen that says that it couldn't be used in a phone.
I for one, believe that this 50% margin number was pulled out of someone's ass. It is completely made up and has absolutely no basis in reality whatsoever.
It's not out of line. All the iPods have about that gross margin. The problem is that gross margin only considers about 50-70% of Apple's expenses, just the cost of the physical pieces.
Is the FIC-GTA001 just a concept or do they have an actual working model?
All I've seen are renders, but I don't think it matters. In my opinion, FIC is not worth dealing with. Their FIC and ECS brands (among others) are the worst brands of any kind that I can think of, save maybe Enron and the like.
From a consumer sense they offered what people wanted. The Razor was the thinnest phone and best designed phone when it was first introduced.
RAZR is/was the thinnest phone in the US, I've heard that there are several thinner phones are available in Japan and Korea. I think it got pretty popular because the cost went down a lot.
I for one, believe that this 50% margin number was pulled out of someone's ass. It is completely made up and has absolutely no basis in reality whatsoever.
Good point.
Quite apart from that, even if were a correct number, "gross margin" is an utterly meaningless metric (ranks right up there with "EBITDA").