It isn't an inferior product. It's a different product.
If Apple had introduced the Mac Book, and then, several months later introduced the Mac Book Pro, would you have said that they introduced an inferior product first?
Two different products, two different customer bases.
Or the same customer base.
I've multiple phones. When I don't want to look like a geek or I'm out biking I'll carry my little indestructible SE T610. If I'm away for a week and likely to be only occasionally capable of recharging, I'll take my Nokia 6310 with it's huge battery that lasts about 2 weeks. Otherwise I've my SE P910 that does almost everything.
Personally, if they come out with something as elegant and small as a T610 then I'm buying that and if they come out with something better than my P910i, that too.
In the UK we've more mobile phones than people. 3-4 phones is not unusual.
FrontRow interface.... That would - ROCK -! Reason enough for me to get one, if it look sgood too..
It'd get annoying rapidly on a smartphone with 30+ applications though.
FrontRow isn't too dissimilar to most phone UIs, well Nokia and SE anyway. On both of those you have 4 icons and a jog dial or joystick to rotate through them. Click on the icon and it goes to the app screen.
On the screen there, you toggle through the icons by moving the jog dial on the side of the phone. Ok, it doesn't have the swishy Front Row 3D interface, but that'd get tedious rapidly on a phone.
As for the poor PC users, Apple can give them Lite versions of the basic apps they would need - giving them a taste of what they would get if they moved to a Mac. Worked for iTunes.
I was thinking about this in respect of the original article.
If it's true that Apple held back features in 10.4 that would have been used with the phone then perhaps that explains the half assed nature of iSync in 10.4. In some respects a backward step from 10.3 (ie. fix the flippin menubar icon sync).
The bundling of more and more sync features in iTunes confuses the hell out of me. They've a perfectly executed Sync Services framework that works with iSync and .Mac sync, it includes conduits for most phones out there including uploading applications onto smartphones that don't support SyncML. Yet, still they add syncing into iTunes rather than adding iTunes to iSync.
Now, what if iSync's redesign that we got in 10.4 was only half the story and the full version wasn't released? What if it also ran on Windows? What if it provided conduits for common 3rd party applications like Outlook, Picassa, Thunderbird, Mozilla Calendar?
iTunes also confuses me. It's the one iLife application that's still stuck in it's OS9 carbon derived past.
I reckon we'll see iTunes 8 (the rewrite) and iSync for Windows come January.
That'd provide Windows users with all the syncing they'd need to their own applications and without Apple having to write iPhoto Lite or port AddressBook. The iSync application is also simple enough that it doesn't require them to port all of Cocoa to Windows.
Full OS integration to include Salling Clicker like functionality sounds interesting - I use my phone regularly to control powerpoint presentations and although SClicker is impressive it isnt wholly integrated into the phone or the Mac OS.
It became apparent some time ago that there was a serious window of opportunity for apple to make a wifi/gsm phone, see the comment:
If Apple went as far as letting the phone act as a handset for ichat this would again be interesting, but it needs to be more open than this to have widespread acceptance - ie you need to be able to either configure ichat for other SIP based VoIP services such as Vonage, or let the phone act as as a generic handset for other softphones (Xlite, eyebeam, sjphone, even skype!) that may be running on a paired Mac. If done via bluetooth, I understand that this would require implementation of the the CTP (cordless telephony profile) which to date is still kina rare.
The reverse functionality (letting the Mac act as a speakerphone for the mobile handset) is already on the way
And, how would this work? To do that, it would either have to be a Windows phone, not likely, or would have to have something such as Crossover built-in.
I would hope that Apple would make this compatable with OS X software instead, though it could be compatable with Exchange and Office, as Palm is, on the file, and connection, level
I'm confused by your comments and question. Of course an Apple phone would be fully compatible with OS X and its organizational apps.
I was talking about how an Apple phone could work on Windows. It seems Apple would aim more towards the open source formats than Windows proprietary formats.
Calendars would be easy because Windows Calendar, Google Calendar, Mozilla Sunbird/Lightening all support Apple iCal format.
E-mail could be a bit messy. The phone should support Entourage but Entourage cannot natively read Outlooks .pst files. As far as I know it should not be much problem for the phone to support Thunderbird or Google Mail.
Email is messier, but Outlook Express/Outlook should be plenty... and after my "experiences" with Thunderbird, and the simple matter that it hasn't caught on like Firefox it would be best just to leave that one out. Gmail is Web Based though... lol
Perhaps a good development enviornment for 3rd Party software in Xcode would make it much more worthwhile instead of trying to figure out ways to port Windows Software over. Outlook is actually enough just for the iPhone.
Will Apple support Outlook? Windows Mobile does not support Apple Mail.
If they want to sell phones to people other than Mac users, they'll have to. It's not that big an issue. All they have to do is write a conduit that supports Microsoft's Mail API. I've not had to code to it in a while but their MAPI api is what we used to use in the MFC days. There's probably some .net interface now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TenoBell
GMail does have a plug in for your phone.
That's different. It's a java applet that runs on your phone. No need to sync between gmail and your phone. It's very good too.
It'd get annoying rapidly on a smartphone with 30+ applications though.
FrontRow isn't too dissimilar to most phone UIs, well Nokia and SE anyway. On both of those you have 4 icons and a jog dial or joystick to rotate through them. Click on the icon and it goes to the app screen.
On the screen there, you toggle through the icons by moving the jog dial on the side of the phone. Ok, it doesn't have the swishy Front Row 3D interface, but that'd get tedious rapidly on a phone.
a really similar phone interface is the sidekick's ui. it's much more primitive graphically but the sliding array of applications is the same. i don't think it would be that bad until you got a LOT of applications in there (even then they could do sub-directories). i had a few extra downloaded apps into my sidekick and it wasn't that difficult to navigate to them. as long as there's an easy shortcut method to get the main apps it's not that much of an issue.
As far as I know it should not be much problem for the phone to support Thunderbird or Google Mail.
Not sure I understand why a phone would "support Thunderbird" since TB's a mail client. Doesn't the phone need its own mail client, preferably with POP3 and/or IMAP server support?
Not sure I understand why a phone would "support Thunderbird" since TB's a mail client. Doesn't the phone need its own mail client, preferably with POP3 and/or IMAP server support?
Not 'ON' the phone. The speculation and theories were mainly about syncing with your Windows applications, such as your TB (or Outlook) address book when your iPhone is connected to your Windows PC.
Not sure I understand why a phone would "support Thunderbird" since TB's a mail client. Doesn't the phone need its own mail client, preferably with POP3 and/or IMAP server support?
It's the old Palm mindset where you sync your mail onto your PDA from your PC/Mac, edit on the PDA and then when you resync it sends on the mail you've prepared offline. Some people still prefer to work that way or just to be able to carry around their inbox as it was on their desktop.
Of course, if they just used IMAP (and IMAP IDLE would get them push email too) then it wouldn't be an issue other than the data charges. Lot's of people still prefer POP3 though.
Also, you'd have to sync the equivalent of the address book for whatever email app you want to support be it a built in one like in Eudora or a separate application like WAB, a company addressbook or Apple's AddressBook.
Of course, if they just used IMAP (and IMAP IDLE would get them push email too) then it wouldn't be an issue other than the data charges.
And that's more popular as an enterprise solution than something a major segment of the hypothetical iPhone market would currently use.
Quote:
Lot's of people still prefer POP3 though.
Some prefer, others don't know about or can't use it.
I could have excluded POP3 in my original message since using it's not particularly well suited for phone usage, even with "leave mail on server" enabled.
Quote:
Also, you'd have to sync the equivalent of the address book for whatever email app you want to support be it a built in one like in Eudora or a separate application like WAB, a company addressbook or Apple's AddressBook.
Yeah, synching contacts might require some interaction with a desktop mail client even if IMAP (and SMTP) were utilized for message transfers.
Anyway, I'm not as clueless about the issues as my lame questioning made me seem.
And that's more popular as an enterprise solution than something a major segment of the hypothetical iPhone market would currently use.
Maybe not. For the last year or so at least, most CPanel based hosting providers have had IMAP IDLE enabled if they've kept up with their Exim and Courier-IMAP mail server updates. I offer it to all my customers anyway. Have done for more than a year since I was using it on my phone a few years back. :-)
Maybe not. For the last year or so at least, most CPanel based hosting providers have had IMAP IDLE enabled if they've kept up with their Exim and Courier-IMAP mail server updates. I offer it to all my customers anyway. Have done for more than a year since I was using it on my phone a few years back. :-)
Blackberry Connect? Why?
Anyone know if .mac has IMAP IDLE enabled? I'd love to know if it's a problem with my TyTN or with the .mac servers.
Will Apple support Outlook? Windows Mobile does not support Apple Mail. If they want to sell phones to people other than Mac users, they'll have to. It's not that big an issue.
I know technically its not difficult. But MS and Apple don't have a history of directly supporting each other in this way.
Apple could support Outlook. This would be the path of least resistance but that would help continue the dominance of Outlook.
Quote:
That's different. It's a java applet that runs on your phone. No need to sync between gmail and your phone. It's very good too.
Yes I know. I was pointing it out as an example.
Quote:
Lot's of people still prefer POP3 though.
Some popular e-mail services such as Gmail only use POP. IMAP isn't an option.
Comments
It isn't an inferior product. It's a different product.
If Apple had introduced the Mac Book, and then, several months later introduced the Mac Book Pro, would you have said that they introduced an inferior product first?
Two different products, two different customer bases.
Or the same customer base.
I've multiple phones. When I don't want to look like a geek or I'm out biking I'll carry my little indestructible SE T610. If I'm away for a week and likely to be only occasionally capable of recharging, I'll take my Nokia 6310 with it's huge battery that lasts about 2 weeks. Otherwise I've my SE P910 that does almost everything.
Personally, if they come out with something as elegant and small as a T610 then I'm buying that and if they come out with something better than my P910i, that too.
In the UK we've more mobile phones than people. 3-4 phones is not unusual.
FrontRow interface.... That would - ROCK -! Reason enough for me to get one, if it look sgood too..
It'd get annoying rapidly on a smartphone with 30+ applications though.
FrontRow isn't too dissimilar to most phone UIs, well Nokia and SE anyway. On both of those you have 4 icons and a jog dial or joystick to rotate through them. Click on the icon and it goes to the app screen.
See http://www.uiq.com/sonyericsson_p990.html
On the screen there, you toggle through the icons by moving the jog dial on the side of the phone. Ok, it doesn't have the swishy Front Row 3D interface, but that'd get tedious rapidly on a phone.
As for the poor PC users, Apple can give them Lite versions of the basic apps they would need - giving them a taste of what they would get if they moved to a Mac. Worked for iTunes.
I was thinking about this in respect of the original article.
If it's true that Apple held back features in 10.4 that would have been used with the phone then perhaps that explains the half assed nature of iSync in 10.4. In some respects a backward step from 10.3 (ie. fix the flippin menubar icon sync).
The bundling of more and more sync features in iTunes confuses the hell out of me. They've a perfectly executed Sync Services framework that works with iSync and .Mac sync, it includes conduits for most phones out there including uploading applications onto smartphones that don't support SyncML. Yet, still they add syncing into iTunes rather than adding iTunes to iSync.
Now, what if iSync's redesign that we got in 10.4 was only half the story and the full version wasn't released? What if it also ran on Windows? What if it provided conduits for common 3rd party applications like Outlook, Picassa, Thunderbird, Mozilla Calendar?
iTunes also confuses me. It's the one iLife application that's still stuck in it's OS9 carbon derived past.
I reckon we'll see iTunes 8 (the rewrite) and iSync for Windows come January.
That'd provide Windows users with all the syncing they'd need to their own applications and without Apple having to write iPhoto Lite or port AddressBook. The iSync application is also simple enough that it doesn't require them to port all of Cocoa to Windows.
It became apparent some time ago that there was a serious window of opportunity for apple to make a wifi/gsm phone, see the comment:
here
There is potential for useful halo effect.
If Apple went as far as letting the phone act as a handset for ichat this would again be interesting, but it needs to be more open than this to have widespread acceptance - ie you need to be able to either configure ichat for other SIP based VoIP services such as Vonage, or let the phone act as as a generic handset for other softphones (Xlite, eyebeam, sjphone, even skype!) that may be running on a paired Mac. If done via bluetooth, I understand that this would require implementation of the the CTP (cordless telephony profile) which to date is still kina rare.
The reverse functionality (letting the Mac act as a speakerphone for the mobile handset) is already on the way
bluephone2 beta
Two days ago I wasnt the least bit interested in an iphone. Now I am curious.
In the UK we've more mobile phones than people. 3-4 phones is not unusual.
Ferrets too, I think.
I've had four myself.
And, how would this work? To do that, it would either have to be a Windows phone, not likely, or would have to have something such as Crossover built-in.
I would hope that Apple would make this compatable with OS X software instead, though it could be compatable with Exchange and Office, as Palm is, on the file, and connection, level
I'm confused by your comments and question. Of course an Apple phone would be fully compatible with OS X and its organizational apps.
I was talking about how an Apple phone could work on Windows. It seems Apple would aim more towards the open source formats than Windows proprietary formats.
Calendars would be easy because Windows Calendar, Google Calendar, Mozilla Sunbird/Lightening all support Apple iCal format.
E-mail could be a bit messy. The phone should support Entourage but Entourage cannot natively read Outlooks .pst files. As far as I know it should not be much problem for the phone to support Thunderbird or Google Mail.
if nike plus worked with this that would totally replace the nano.
what do people mean by slide out keyboard. can anyone give any examples from current phones?
two different models is correct. not inferior and superior. they will probably announce both at mwsf, but only immediately ship the nano type.
See the Cingular 8125 for an example.
Perhaps a good development enviornment for 3rd Party software in Xcode would make it much more worthwhile instead of trying to figure out ways to port Windows Software over. Outlook is actually enough just for the iPhone.
Email is messier, but Outlook Express/Outlook should be plenty...
Will Apple support Outlook? Windows Mobile does not support Apple Mail.
Gmail is Web Based though... lol
GMail does have a plug in for your phone.
Will Apple support Outlook? Windows Mobile does not support Apple Mail.
I believe the iPod does when it comes to Contacts and Calendars
GMail does have a plug in for your phone.
So why not just use the Plug in if you wish to use Gmail? No reason to build it directly into the phone.
Will Apple support Outlook? Windows Mobile does not support Apple Mail.
If they want to sell phones to people other than Mac users, they'll have to. It's not that big an issue. All they have to do is write a conduit that supports Microsoft's Mail API. I've not had to code to it in a while but their MAPI api is what we used to use in the MFC days. There's probably some .net interface now.
GMail does have a plug in for your phone.
That's different. It's a java applet that runs on your phone. No need to sync between gmail and your phone. It's very good too.
It'd get annoying rapidly on a smartphone with 30+ applications though.
FrontRow isn't too dissimilar to most phone UIs, well Nokia and SE anyway. On both of those you have 4 icons and a jog dial or joystick to rotate through them. Click on the icon and it goes to the app screen.
See http://www.uiq.com/sonyericsson_p990.html
On the screen there, you toggle through the icons by moving the jog dial on the side of the phone. Ok, it doesn't have the swishy Front Row 3D interface, but that'd get tedious rapidly on a phone.
a really similar phone interface is the sidekick's ui. it's much more primitive graphically but the sliding array of applications is the same. i don't think it would be that bad until you got a LOT of applications in there (even then they could do sub-directories). i had a few extra downloaded apps into my sidekick and it wasn't that difficult to navigate to them. as long as there's an easy shortcut method to get the main apps it's not that much of an issue.
As far as I know it should not be much problem for the phone to support Thunderbird or Google Mail.
Not sure I understand why a phone would "support Thunderbird" since TB's a mail client. Doesn't the phone need its own mail client, preferably with POP3 and/or IMAP server support?
Not sure I understand why a phone would "support Thunderbird" since TB's a mail client. Doesn't the phone need its own mail client, preferably with POP3 and/or IMAP server support?
Not 'ON' the phone. The speculation and theories were mainly about syncing with your Windows applications, such as your TB (or Outlook) address book when your iPhone is connected to your Windows PC.
Not sure I understand why a phone would "support Thunderbird" since TB's a mail client. Doesn't the phone need its own mail client, preferably with POP3 and/or IMAP server support?
It's the old Palm mindset where you sync your mail onto your PDA from your PC/Mac, edit on the PDA and then when you resync it sends on the mail you've prepared offline. Some people still prefer to work that way or just to be able to carry around their inbox as it was on their desktop.
Of course, if they just used IMAP (and IMAP IDLE would get them push email too) then it wouldn't be an issue other than the data charges. Lot's of people still prefer POP3 though.
Also, you'd have to sync the equivalent of the address book for whatever email app you want to support be it a built in one like in Eudora or a separate application like WAB, a company addressbook or Apple's AddressBook.
Of course, if they just used IMAP (and IMAP IDLE would get them push email too) then it wouldn't be an issue other than the data charges.
And that's more popular as an enterprise solution than something a major segment of the hypothetical iPhone market would currently use.
Lot's of people still prefer POP3 though.
Some prefer, others don't know about or can't use it.
I could have excluded POP3 in my original message since using it's not particularly well suited for phone usage, even with "leave mail on server" enabled.
Also, you'd have to sync the equivalent of the address book for whatever email app you want to support be it a built in one like in Eudora or a separate application like WAB, a company addressbook or Apple's AddressBook.
Yeah, synching contacts might require some interaction with a desktop mail client even if IMAP (and SMTP) were utilized for message transfers.
Anyway, I'm not as clueless about the issues as my lame questioning made me seem.
And that's more popular as an enterprise solution than something a major segment of the hypothetical iPhone market would currently use.
Maybe not. For the last year or so at least, most CPanel based hosting providers have had IMAP IDLE enabled if they've kept up with their Exim and Courier-IMAP mail server updates. I offer it to all my customers anyway. Have done for more than a year since I was using it on my phone a few years back. :-)
Blackberry Connect? Why?
Maybe not. For the last year or so at least, most CPanel based hosting providers have had IMAP IDLE enabled if they've kept up with their Exim and Courier-IMAP mail server updates. I offer it to all my customers anyway. Have done for more than a year since I was using it on my phone a few years back. :-)
Blackberry Connect? Why?
Anyone know if .mac has IMAP IDLE enabled? I'd love to know if it's a problem with my TyTN or with the .mac servers.
Stupid .mac ... grumble.
Will Apple support Outlook? Windows Mobile does not support Apple Mail. If they want to sell phones to people other than Mac users, they'll have to. It's not that big an issue.
I know technically its not difficult. But MS and Apple don't have a history of directly supporting each other in this way.
Apple could support Outlook. This would be the path of least resistance but that would help continue the dominance of Outlook.
That's different. It's a java applet that runs on your phone. No need to sync between gmail and your phone. It's very good too.
Yes I know. I was pointing it out as an example.
Lot's of people still prefer POP3 though.
Some popular e-mail services such as Gmail only use POP. IMAP isn't an option.