I still cannot understand why people treat Visual Voicemail like it's some sort of technical miracle. Smartphones have lots of memory these days. When checking VM, why don't they simply download all the messages as discrete audio files and then manage it on the phone itself, just like email? Whether people want to use the POP or IMAP model doesn't matter - the handset, and not the carrier, should own the voicemail once accessed.
Relying on a realtime dependency at the carriers seems like an ass-backward way to do this.
I'm confused by this statement. Largely Apple does play by general open standards. Apple uses an open standard basis with its own proprietary interface, but that does nothing to change the point of an open standard. The most popular instant messaging services are not open standards. They are all proprietary services.
Absolutely. Apple uses the standards to develop it's own proprietary product in line with it's, generally, better conceptual & industrial designs but in doing so it breaks industry standard compatibility. The point about iChat has nothing to do with IM (it uses it's own protocol & jabber for "openness") but on the audio/video conferencing side it uses a full portfolio of standards (open & otherwise) for session initiation, control, AV compression & transport which should allow it to be H.323 compatible - but no, it isn't, it doesn't connect. Therefore iChat is not open standards compatible but it is open standards based.
Don't get me wrong, this is better. Technical standards are fine I'm sure but whilst they maintain consistent functionality and, where desired, interoperability they do have a tendency to distract development efforts down to the technical level where more conceptual design and usability would yield a better result (i.e. iPod vs MS Plays-for-sure effort). This is Apple's point of difference.
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Relying on a realtime dependency at the carriers seems like an ass-backward way to do this.
I'm confused by this statement. Largely Apple does play by general open standards. Apple uses an open standard basis with its own proprietary interface, but that does nothing to change the point of an open standard. The most popular instant messaging services are not open standards. They are all proprietary services.
Absolutely. Apple uses the standards to develop it's own proprietary product in line with it's, generally, better conceptual & industrial designs but in doing so it breaks industry standard compatibility. The point about iChat has nothing to do with IM (it uses it's own protocol & jabber for "openness") but on the audio/video conferencing side it uses a full portfolio of standards (open & otherwise) for session initiation, control, AV compression & transport which should allow it to be H.323 compatible - but no, it isn't, it doesn't connect. Therefore iChat is not open standards compatible but it is open standards based.
Don't get me wrong, this is better. Technical standards are fine I'm sure but whilst they maintain consistent functionality and, where desired, interoperability they do have a tendency to distract development efforts down to the technical level where more conceptual design and usability would yield a better result (i.e. iPod vs MS Plays-for-sure effort). This is Apple's point of difference.
McD