Wow I love how this thread has gotten so far off track. I have been a apple user since the IIe came out. I used to sell cellphones and can say this 95% of the customers that come in want a free phone and don't want to spend over $60 for a plan. Android can easily taking on apple in the cellphone market due to those factors. I know many of us have no problem shelling out the money of the monthly plan while a vast majority do not or will not. You have Moto, LG, Samsung and HTC all able to make a phone using a free OS with all of Google's free goodies . I mean you can trash Google for making a weaker looking OS but the fact is that Android will more than likely dominate in both China and India since it will be a free OS. Yes Apple makes the OS for the iphone so its not a big deal there but for most of the other companies they have to dump money into their own OS costing more money. Android can take a ton of business since any carrier can opt to carry a Android based device. AT&T is the only US carrier with the iphone so it is a closed market to about a 120 million customers in the US. Apple to dominate in all markets would have to give up their revenue sharing to get all carriers to buy into the iphone and then they could take a massive chunk of the market.
Wow. A "joke"? Did you have any clue what you were buying when you whipped out your credit card?
It's a stellar product that is just before its time. I have every new rental sitting on mine for the entire family to enjoy at their leisure. No returning discs in a hurry - no missing a movie because you were too busy the week it came out.
Oh, and no more burning home movie DVDs. I haven't had to buy a single DVD-RW in I don't know how long.
Oh, yeah...forgot to mention the music streaming to the main entertainment room.
Not bad for a "joke".
Everytime I need to search for music on AppleTV, I cringe. I'd rather use my Mac with Airtunes - it's much easier to search music files then AppleTV- even an iPod is easier to search.
Good for you for renting out the entire iTunes video rental catalogue- you are #1 ATV rental customer! I just hope your family get some exercise in because you have to sit for all those movies each @ 24 hours minimum and watch them all within 30 days.
Ok it's not a "joke"- but it is a "flop". In fact Forbes magazine even nicknamed it the "iFlop".
Ok it's not a "joke"- but it is a "flop". In fact Forbes magazine even nicknamed it the "iFlop".
Before or after the inclusion of movie rentals? A flop because it's Apple's weakest product or a flop compared to other media extenders (this one is rhetorical)?
don't know if you guys have seen this but hey it looks like my iphone "borrows" designs from a movie and isn't that original with the rest of their products =p
don't know if you guys have seen this but hey it looks like my iphone "borrows" designs from a movie and isn't that original =p
It is uncanny at first glance, but I wouldn't call that a slam dunk argument. There were candy bar devices about that width and haptic touchscreen devices with finger sized buttons before the iPhone. It's only natural that the buttons be of a certain general size for the finger and the width of the device be wide enough to be useful but not too wide to fit comfortably in the hand (something RiM took to its maximum). Black cases with chrome trim was also been popular before the iPhone. Could their have been an Apple designer who saw that and thought it would make design for the iPhone? Sure! But is it more likely that it's a backwards discovery seen by an observant film viewer because of the iPhone's popularity? I think so.
What is Apple's market share in the PC market again???
6.1%
They lost the PC war, get over it. I don't want to derail this in to a apple/windows conversation. My point is there business plan looks strikingly familiar to the old PC business plan. I also thing the company that takes the lead in the cell phone OS market will be the next "windows" (business wise that is)
If you mean they lost the war, and still have 15, 18, 20+ BILLION dollars CASH in the kitty ? then your right, sucks being Apple.
don't know if you guys have seen this but hey it looks like my iphone "borrows" designs from a movie and isn't that original with the rest of their products =p
I don't know if Apple touts its designs as original. Designers have been creating tools built around the need for human interface for thousands of years. Much of what we do today is built on very old concepts. Nothing is new.
What Apple does today was very common back in the 50's and 60's. It was common for companies to hire great industrial designers for their products. They would hire famous artists to create their corporate logos and accomplished music composers for corporate jingles.
I was asked if I owned one and was merely responding to a question and your personal feelings of denial in its failure is also not a valid metric measurement. That metric you quote is for iTunes not Apple TV. More people download and rent for iPods than AppleTv. Your comparison is baseless.
I didn't say whether or not I thought AppleTV was a failure. I was asking you by what metric were you declaring it a failure.
How do you know Apple's leading media download share is only for the iPod and does not include Apple TV?
We? Sorry, but it's just a phone/OS, and competition is always good. Google does have the resources and people to make a good/great phone, but this is only the first possible version.
We? Sorry, but it's just a phone/OS, and competition is always good. Google does have the resources and people to make a good/great phone, but this is only the first possible version.
Apple has to work on the stability of the iPhone.... Right now 2.0 is shaky thats where they need to work. I have to restore my iPhone weekly because freaky apps keep hosing it.
All you Androids underestimate what Apple has done. Its going to take Google quite some time to copy what Apple has done with the iPhone.
Well, we'll see just how Android will succeed and succeed it will since the iPhone will still only be on the AT&T network. If the iPhone could be offered in various forms on different carries then the Android would be less successful like every other platform competing with the iPhone.
Apple needs the competition so it may learn how to better their product but the Android platform can use some pointers from Apple at this time.
If anything Android may cause some casualties in the phone OS wars. Namely Palm and Microsoft will lose their home-grown OSes. Palm is more prepared to do that and MS will throw a ton of money to prevent that but in the end MS may just be another software vendor competing for space on the iPhone, Android, or Symbian OS phones. Pocket Office anyone?
Apple has to work on the stability of the iPhone.... Right now 2.0 is shaky thats where they need to work. I have to restore my iPhone weekly because freaky apps keep hosing it.
All you Androids underestimate what Apple has done. Its going to take Google quite some time to copy what Apple has done with the iPhone.
iPhone OS 2.1 is looking very firm. With the latest beta loaded on my iPhone 3G, i am quite impressed.
There are several things you should remember at this time:
1. The OS is the first time release at 3rd-party-level. Its bound to have bugs.
2. The OS is affected by the programs it runs, and iPhone OS is currently being blamed for program bugs. This is why Apple was hesitant to open the platform - do they want the blame for the bugs?
3. Apple was, sadly, way overstretched by management this year. The iPhone OS guys had far less time to bring this OS up to par, and were still releasing versions after gold master. Shows how tight it was as the 3G started shipping with a lower OS than the final 2.0.
Apple are adding in so many under-the-hood changes to make the OS more dynamic for developers, I think we need to be patient.
We are begging for more stuff, like IMs that work when the program is closed. The least we could do is give them a break on bug issues. After all, they have already addressed major bug issues with 2.0.1.
Lets just be a bit more forgiving.
As for android? Well... Google's good at what they do. Can they pull this off technically? Yes. Can they pull this off and keep the developers, customers, and companies happy at the same time? They are having it hard on this issue at the moment.
Will it sell? Its the same old war: quality v openness. We can tweak android a heck of a lot more, but I believe the iPhone is the superior device. The problem? Consumers are dumb. They want a phone that does everything forever. They want it to surf the internet with IM at the fastest speed all the time, and play music, and take calls, and still have power left after five days. They want control to change everything.
The problem? When they stuff up the device by their alterations, or they drain the battery life to about an hour, they will do one thing:
BLAME THE DEVICE. This is not a computer in a consumer's eye. Its a gadget. Gadgets stuffing up is the gadget-makers fault, not the software alterer's issue. On a computer they understand they may stuff it themselves. With a phone? They blame. Even if its their fault that they can't restore it cos of all the viruses they didn't protect against.
Apple is protecting its reputation and quality by taking the control themselves.
Google had better hope it doesn't get the wrong end of the stick when users destroy the software then complain.
Oh and by the way. Still today microsoft computers with "vista" still outsells apple 30 to 1
Nice. So if thirty million people decide to jump off a cliff, but one million don't, the thirty million people are smarter or better off? Most people I know still don't know squat about what makes one platform/phone/political party/law/country/city/car/food/ etc. more advanced or better than another for whatever reason. Simply put, most people are moron sheep and follow what herd they belong to.
I would actually PREFER that Apple keep a smaller market share. I don't want the gene pool of products diluted because some moron can't understand why they may be better at whatever they were designed to do and the product focus is changed because of it.
How are those opposed to each other? I generally find open software and systems better quality on several counts. Both an open and a closed system can be improved immeasureably, but ultimately, the closed system has limitations. If it didn't, we'd call it an open system.
If what you are thinking of is more about quality vs features, that's only a question of tucking the features far enough out of sight that they don't bother the user that would be bothered by them. I wouldn't find it a problem if I had to enter a cryptic incantation in Terminal once to make the phone accept unsigned apps. Categorically disallowing them does not help any customer, and it hurts many. For me the difference is easily worth buying or not buying an iPhone. Understand that unlike sandboxing, which does protect the phone's operation, insisting on being the sole distributor of apps (through the required signing mechanism) is an almost pure money and power grab from Apple. It has nothing to do with security.
Quote:
BLAME THE DEVICE. This is not a computer in a consumer's eye. Its a gadget. Gadgets stuffing up is the gadget-makers fault, not the software alterer's issue. On a computer they understand they may stuff it themselves. With a phone? They blame. Even if its their fault that they can't restore it cos of all the viruses they didn't protect against.
If the device can be bricked by running software on it, that *is* the manufacturer's fault for not building a good sandbox, or better yet, allowing the user to wipe the device and start from scratch. It is simple to do by allowing an emergency USB mass storage mode and putting up a clean phone image for download.
I'm not saying stupid people wouldn't still bark up the wrong tree, but if you aren't calling for Apple to start acting as gatekeeper for all software that can run on Macs, you have no reason to cheer them for doing that on iPhone.
Google is a very creative company but they have never had style. Apple has a much more dynamic and fluid vision for Web 2.0 than Google, which is probably why they are now more valuable than them!
Before or after the inclusion of movie rentals? A flop because it's Apple's weakest product or a flop compared to other media extenders (this one is rhetorical)?
1.) Both
2.) Apple's weakest product since the iPod HI Fi. What would you compare it to? I would compare it directly to the Mac mini first.
A flop because it got an upgrade on July 10th, Take 2.1, and the AppleInsider didn't even bother to post a thread about it.
What would you compare it to? I would compare it directly to the Mac mini first.
I would compare to other products in its category. Saying it's a failure because you don't want it or that it's not as successful as the iPod is silly. It's a media extender and should be compared to other Media Extenders to see it's specific rank among such devices. Now, if you want to say that all media extenders are failures as they stand due to a low adoption rate over traditonal optical media players, then fine, that would be a legitimate argument.
Even Mr. Steve Jobs himself stated earlier this year that no one had gotten it right when referring to the AppleTV. They still refer to it a "hobby" and don't include it as one of its "3-legs" (Mac, iPod. iPhone) so we know that Apple doesn't see the current iteration as major money maker, but that in no way implies a flop either, as stated above. Do you think that any product a company makes less of compared to their other products a flop? Are the N95 a flop because Nokia sells many more of their cheaper, simple handsets? Of course not.
It's all relative and until you decide to compare to other like devices and not go on your personal feelings of the product's usefulness to you you can't make such a determination.
Comments
Wow. A "joke"? Did you have any clue what you were buying when you whipped out your credit card?
It's a stellar product that is just before its time. I have every new rental sitting on mine for the entire family to enjoy at their leisure. No returning discs in a hurry - no missing a movie because you were too busy the week it came out.
Oh, and no more burning home movie DVDs. I haven't had to buy a single DVD-RW in I don't know how long.
Oh, yeah...forgot to mention the music streaming to the main entertainment room.
Not bad for a "joke".
Everytime I need to search for music on AppleTV, I cringe. I'd rather use my Mac with Airtunes - it's much easier to search music files then AppleTV- even an iPod is easier to search.
Good for you for renting out the entire iTunes video rental catalogue- you are #1 ATV rental customer! I just hope your family get some exercise in because you have to sit for all those movies each @ 24 hours minimum and watch them all within 30 days.
Ok it's not a "joke"- but it is a "flop". In fact Forbes magazine even nicknamed it the "iFlop".
Ok it's not a "joke"- but it is a "flop". In fact Forbes magazine even nicknamed it the "iFlop".
Before or after the inclusion of movie rentals? A flop because it's Apple's weakest product or a flop compared to other media extenders (this one is rhetorical)?
PS: Off topic: If you are a FaceBook user this is pretty funny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrlSkU0TFLs
http://gizmodo.com/343641/1960s-brau...-apples-future
don't know if you guys have seen this but hey it looks like my iphone "borrows" designs from a movie and isn't that original with the rest of their products =p
http://design4dough.wordpress.com/
don't know if you guys have seen this but hey it looks like my iphone "borrows" designs from a movie and isn't that original =p
It is uncanny at first glance, but I wouldn't call that a slam dunk argument. There were candy bar devices about that width and haptic touchscreen devices with finger sized buttons before the iPhone. It's only natural that the buttons be of a certain general size for the finger and the width of the device be wide enough to be useful but not too wide to fit comfortably in the hand (something RiM took to its maximum). Black cases with chrome trim was also been popular before the iPhone. Could their have been an Apple designer who saw that and thought it would make design for the iPhone? Sure! But is it more likely that it's a backwards discovery seen by an observant film viewer because of the iPhone's popularity? I think so.
Watch the end of the Video with the Android running Google Street View... powered by GPS... Very neat.
Google is Holding out. Where is it for iPhone?
What is Apple's market share in the PC market again???
6.1%
They lost the PC war, get over it. I don't want to derail this in to a apple/windows conversation. My point is there business plan looks strikingly familiar to the old PC business plan. I also thing the company that takes the lead in the cell phone OS market will be the next "windows" (business wise that is)
If you mean they lost the war, and still have 15, 18, 20+ BILLION dollars CASH in the kitty ? then your right, sucks being Apple.
Skip
don't know if you guys have seen this but hey it looks like my iphone "borrows" designs from a movie and isn't that original with the rest of their products =p
I don't know if Apple touts its designs as original. Designers have been creating tools built around the need for human interface for thousands of years. Much of what we do today is built on very old concepts. Nothing is new.
What Apple does today was very common back in the 50's and 60's. It was common for companies to hire great industrial designers for their products. They would hire famous artists to create their corporate logos and accomplished music composers for corporate jingles.
I was asked if I owned one and was merely responding to a question and your personal feelings of denial in its failure is also not a valid metric measurement. That metric you quote is for iTunes not Apple TV. More people download and rent for iPods than AppleTv. Your comparison is baseless.
I didn't say whether or not I thought AppleTV was a failure. I was asking you by what metric were you declaring it a failure.
How do you know Apple's leading media download share is only for the iPod and does not include Apple TV?
Bring it on.....
We will bury these cockroaches.....
We? Sorry, but it's just a phone/OS, and competition is always good. Google does have the resources and people to make a good/great phone, but this is only the first possible version.
We? Sorry, but it's just a phone/OS, and competition is always good. Google does have the resources and people to make a good/great phone, but this is only the first possible version.
Apple has to work on the stability of the iPhone.... Right now 2.0 is shaky thats where they need to work. I have to restore my iPhone weekly because freaky apps keep hosing it.
All you Androids underestimate what Apple has done. Its going to take Google quite some time to copy what Apple has done with the iPhone.
Apple needs the competition so it may learn how to better their product but the Android platform can use some pointers from Apple at this time.
If anything Android may cause some casualties in the phone OS wars. Namely Palm and Microsoft will lose their home-grown OSes. Palm is more prepared to do that and MS will throw a ton of money to prevent that but in the end MS may just be another software vendor competing for space on the iPhone, Android, or Symbian OS phones. Pocket Office anyone?
Apple has to work on the stability of the iPhone.... Right now 2.0 is shaky thats where they need to work. I have to restore my iPhone weekly because freaky apps keep hosing it.
All you Androids underestimate what Apple has done. Its going to take Google quite some time to copy what Apple has done with the iPhone.
iPhone OS 2.1 is looking very firm. With the latest beta loaded on my iPhone 3G, i am quite impressed.
There are several things you should remember at this time:
1. The OS is the first time release at 3rd-party-level. Its bound to have bugs.
2. The OS is affected by the programs it runs, and iPhone OS is currently being blamed for program bugs. This is why Apple was hesitant to open the platform - do they want the blame for the bugs?
3. Apple was, sadly, way overstretched by management this year. The iPhone OS guys had far less time to bring this OS up to par, and were still releasing versions after gold master. Shows how tight it was as the 3G started shipping with a lower OS than the final 2.0.
Apple are adding in so many under-the-hood changes to make the OS more dynamic for developers, I think we need to be patient.
We are begging for more stuff, like IMs that work when the program is closed. The least we could do is give them a break on bug issues. After all, they have already addressed major bug issues with 2.0.1.
Lets just be a bit more forgiving.
As for android? Well... Google's good at what they do. Can they pull this off technically? Yes. Can they pull this off and keep the developers, customers, and companies happy at the same time? They are having it hard on this issue at the moment.
Will it sell? Its the same old war: quality v openness. We can tweak android a heck of a lot more, but I believe the iPhone is the superior device. The problem? Consumers are dumb. They want a phone that does everything forever. They want it to surf the internet with IM at the fastest speed all the time, and play music, and take calls, and still have power left after five days. They want control to change everything.
The problem? When they stuff up the device by their alterations, or they drain the battery life to about an hour, they will do one thing:
BLAME THE DEVICE. This is not a computer in a consumer's eye. Its a gadget. Gadgets stuffing up is the gadget-makers fault, not the software alterer's issue. On a computer they understand they may stuff it themselves. With a phone? They blame. Even if its their fault that they can't restore it cos of all the viruses they didn't protect against.
Apple is protecting its reputation and quality by taking the control themselves.
Google had better hope it doesn't get the wrong end of the stick when users destroy the software then complain.
Oh and by the way. Still today microsoft computers with "vista" still outsells apple 30 to 1
Nice. So if thirty million people decide to jump off a cliff, but one million don't, the thirty million people are smarter or better off? Most people I know still don't know squat about what makes one platform/phone/political party/law/country/city/car/food/ etc. more advanced or better than another for whatever reason. Simply put, most people are moron sheep and follow what herd they belong to.
I would actually PREFER that Apple keep a smaller market share. I don't want the gene pool of products diluted because some moron can't understand why they may be better at whatever they were designed to do and the product focus is changed because of it.
Its the same old war: quality v openness.
How are those opposed to each other? I generally find open software and systems better quality on several counts. Both an open and a closed system can be improved immeasureably, but ultimately, the closed system has limitations. If it didn't, we'd call it an open system.
If what you are thinking of is more about quality vs features, that's only a question of tucking the features far enough out of sight that they don't bother the user that would be bothered by them. I wouldn't find it a problem if I had to enter a cryptic incantation in Terminal once to make the phone accept unsigned apps. Categorically disallowing them does not help any customer, and it hurts many. For me the difference is easily worth buying or not buying an iPhone. Understand that unlike sandboxing, which does protect the phone's operation, insisting on being the sole distributor of apps (through the required signing mechanism) is an almost pure money and power grab from Apple. It has nothing to do with security.
BLAME THE DEVICE. This is not a computer in a consumer's eye. Its a gadget. Gadgets stuffing up is the gadget-makers fault, not the software alterer's issue. On a computer they understand they may stuff it themselves. With a phone? They blame. Even if its their fault that they can't restore it cos of all the viruses they didn't protect against.
If the device can be bricked by running software on it, that *is* the manufacturer's fault for not building a good sandbox, or better yet, allowing the user to wipe the device and start from scratch. It is simple to do by allowing an emergency USB mass storage mode and putting up a clean phone image for download.
I'm not saying stupid people wouldn't still bark up the wrong tree, but if you aren't calling for Apple to start acting as gatekeeper for all software that can run on Macs, you have no reason to cheer them for doing that on iPhone.
How do you know Apple's leading media download share is only for the iPod and does not include Apple TV?
I don't - and thats not what I said -and therefore I refuse to respond anymore if you can't read and comprehend.
Before or after the inclusion of movie rentals? A flop because it's Apple's weakest product or a flop compared to other media extenders (this one is rhetorical)?
1.) Both
2.) Apple's weakest product since the iPod HI Fi. What would you compare it to? I would compare it directly to the Mac mini first.
A flop because it got an upgrade on July 10th, Take 2.1, and the AppleInsider didn't even bother to post a thread about it.
Need I say more?
A flop because it got an upgrade on July 10th, Take 2.1, and the AppleInsider didn't even bother to post a thread about it.
Need I say more?
You expect us to believe that Forbes called it a flop because AI didn't do an article about the AppleTV? Which, by the way, they did.... edit:
What would you compare it to? I would compare it directly to the Mac mini first.
I would compare to other products in its category. Saying it's a failure because you don't want it or that it's not as successful as the iPod is silly. It's a media extender and should be compared to other Media Extenders to see it's specific rank among such devices. Now, if you want to say that all media extenders are failures as they stand due to a low adoption rate over traditonal optical media players, then fine, that would be a legitimate argument.
Even Mr. Steve Jobs himself stated earlier this year that no one had gotten it right when referring to the AppleTV. They still refer to it a "hobby" and don't include it as one of its "3-legs" (Mac, iPod. iPhone) so we know that Apple doesn't see the current iteration as major money maker, but that in no way implies a flop either, as stated above. Do you think that any product a company makes less of compared to their other products a flop? Are the N95 a flop because Nokia sells many more of their cheaper, simple handsets? Of course not.
It's all relative and until you decide to compare to other like devices and not go on your personal feelings of the product's usefulness to you you can't make such a determination.
I don't - and thats not what I said -and therefore I refuse to respond anymore if you can't read and comprehend.
It would help if you could take the trouble to write in a manner that makes it comprehensible for the reader.