At what point does someone stop being an objective consumer? At what point did you guys stop demanding a better product from Apple? It's obvious people here don't care about an honest opinion if it in any way goes against Apple. Do you limit your narrowed one way thinking to Apple products or do you apply this arrogant view to other things? I mean, do you drive one type of car or buy one type of cereal?
A lot of limitations of the iphone are artificial, and put in place by Apple for bad reasons. It's a great phone, so much so in fact that when I got rid of it, I ended up buying an ipod touch, but doesn't it frustrate you guys that something like copy and paste only comes around when another company steps up to the plate and offers a serious contender? Face it, Apple could have given everyone copy and paste from day one, but they didn't. It wasn't until the Pre was just around the corner that Apple decided to "revolutionize" the industry with something that's been around since 1993. This is typical Apple behavior, and you fanboys allow it to happen by bending over backwards and accepting it with open cheeks.
Take my advice: Never stop seeing the BS Apple feeds you. When you become a consumer who buys things because you are told to buy them, you actually inhibit innovation.
At what point does someone stop being an objective consumer? At what point did you guys stop demanding a better product from Apple? It's obvious people here don't care about an honest opinion if it in any way goes against Apple. Do you limit your narrowed one way thinking to Apple products or do you apply this arrogant view to other things? I mean, do you drive one type of car or buy one type of cereal?
Well the problem with your statements is that you assume you have the fullest understanding of what a better product is and that we don't. Starting a discussion by saying you are stupid and I am smart is not the best way to begin.
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A lot of limitations of the iphone are artificial, and put in place by Apple for bad reasons.
That is your opinion but what ultimately determines if Apple has made good choices are sales and profits.
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It's a great phone, so much so in fact that when I got rid of it, I ended up buying an ipod touch, but doesn't it frustrate you guys that something like copy and paste only comes around when another company steps up to the plate and offers a serious contender? Face it, Apple could have given everyone copy and paste from day one, but they didn't. It wasn't until the Pre was just around the corner that Apple decided to "revolutionize" the industry with something that's been around since 1993. This is typical Apple behavior, and you fanboys allow it to happen by bending over backwards and accepting it with open cheeks.
This is your misunderstanding of the finer detail of how these things work. People come on these forums and take a stance as though they know so much and then make statements that clearly show they don't know what they are talking about at all.
Functionality in software does not just happen by magic. People have to sit and write code, that code has be tested and perfected before it gets to the point of being usable. Every company has a limit in the number of talented people it can use to write this code. So they have to build software is stages and add functionality incrementally. Companies have to choose what software is most important to add sooner and what can wait until later. These choices have to be made and their is no way to do it any faster.
Part of the reason why it has taken copy and paste so long is because copy and paste on a finger touch screen is new. Its an entirely different problem from a pixel accurate pointer or a stylus. The BlackBerry Storm has finger touch copy and paste and all of the reviews says its horrible.
Another part of the reason it has taken so long is because once Apple choose the copy and paste gesture they are stuck with it. They likely took their time in figuring out what would be the best gesture for copy/paste to make sure they will not need to change it later.
No Apple did not suddenly add copy and paste simply because the Pre was announced with copy and paste. Mind you the Pre is not yet an available product, no one has used it to judge how well it works. Apple would have had to plan what was going to be in the iPhone 3.0 months if not over a year ago, long before the Pre was ever known about. They cannot just flip and switch and suddenly add features, iPhone 3.0 was planned long ago.
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Take my advice: Never stop seeing the BS Apple feeds you. When you become a consumer who buys things because you are told to buy them, you actually inhibit innovation.
Discussions on the list would be much more productive and informative if people actually came with real substantive information, not accusations and low brow name calling.
Well the problem with your statements is that you assume you have the fullest understanding of what a better product is and that we don't. Starting a discussion by saying you are stupid and I am smart is not the best way to begin.
I do have the fullest understanding of what a better product is, and I never said you are stupid and I am smart. It speaks volumes that you read my statements this way. Someone with an opinion different from yours must be attacking you right? That's interesting...
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
That is your opinion but what ultimately determines if Apple has made good choices are sales and profits.
Really? You know the pet rock did pretty good...
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
This is your misunderstanding of the finer detail of how these things work. People come on these forums and take a stance as though they know so much and then make statements that clearly show they don't know what they are talking about at all.
Well, as a software developer, I must say this is a pretty funny statement.
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
Functionality in software does not just happen by magic. People have to sit and write code, that code has be tested and perfected before it gets to the point of being usable. Every company has a limit in the number of talented people it can use to write this code. So they have to build software is stages and add functionality incrementally. Companies have to choose what software is most important to add sooner and what can wait until later. These choices have to be made and their is no way to do it any faster.
Again, excuses excuses excuses. The iphone is a smart phone is it not? What kind of smart phone can't do copy and paste? It's a simple function that should have been implemented from day one. I have no doubt in my mind that Apple had the code, but used this as just one of those "future enhancements" they implement to keep people from switching to another phone just at the right moment (Pre is right around the corner.)
Hey let me ask you this, when tegra comes out, you think Apple will allow video recording? Hmm, maybe you guys can line up around the block then to get something your phone is already capable of.
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
Part of the reason why it has taken copy and paste so long is because copy and paste on a finger touch screen is new. Its an entirely different problem from a pixel accurate pointer or a stylus. The BlackBerry Storm has finger touch copy and paste and all of the reviews says its horrible.
Excuses
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
Another part of the reason it has taken so long is because once Apple choose the copy and paste gesture they are stuck with it. They likely took their time in figuring out what would be the best gesture for copy/paste to make sure they will not need to change it later.
Excuses
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
No Apple did not suddenly add copy and paste simply because the Pre was announced with copy and paste.
Yes they did.
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
Mind you the Pre is not yet an available product, no one has used it to judge how well it works.
Tell that to the reviewers.
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
Apple would have had to plan what was going to be in the iPhone 3.0 months if not over a year ago, long before the Pre was ever known about.
You're absolutely correct. You see, Apple DID plan what was going into 3.0 long ago, but much longer than you think. Artificial limitations are easy to fix, and are better appreciated just before the competition hits the market.
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
They cannot just flip and switch and suddenly add features, iPhone 3.0 was planned long ago.
No, I'm sure it isn't as simple as flipping a switch. A group of greedy corporate big wigs have to agree to flip that switch, and when, and that's really hard work!
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
Discussions on the list would be much more productive and informative if people actually came with real substantive information, not accusations and low brow name calling.
If you want that you need to go to Engadget.
Wake up! You're proving my point and you don't even see it. Why do you think so many people jailbreak their iphones? They shouldn't have to do that!
It's a great explication of how good platform development works, as it relates to the iPhone.
Basically, Apple knew they were building a new, hopefully successful, necessarily extensible platform. As such, they had to get the nuts and bolts right. It was more important to get the frameworks and underpinnings right then it was to put the bells and whistles in, because when you get he former right the latter will come.
This is the opposite of what most phone manufacturers are doing, which is to concentrate on bells and whistles at the expense of having any kind of robust, extensible, well thought out and future proof framework.
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The iPhone was not conceived merely as a single device or a one-time creation. It?s a platform. A framework engineered for the long-run. The iPhone didn?t and doesn?t need MMS or a better camera or a video camera or more storage or cut/copy/paste or GPS mapping or note syncing, because the framework was in place so that Apple could add these things, and much more, later ? either through software updates or through new hardware designs. The way to build a complex device with all the features you want is not to start by trying to build a device with all those features, but rather to start with the fundamentals, and then iterate and evolve.
There?s no better example than background tasks. The problem isn?t that the iPhone OS isn?t technically capable of pre-emptive multitasking, like the old Mac OS. Some of Apple?s own apps ? like MobileSafari, the phone app, the audio player, the new-to-3.0 Voice Memos ? already continue running when in the background. In fact, because it?s built on the same Unix underpinnings as Mac OS X, Apple had to do more work to create the upcoming push notification system than they would have had to do to just enable background processing for third-party apps. Scott Forstall said as much on stage during the iPhone OS 3.0 special event. The problem is not the software but the hardware ? the current CPU is too slow, there isn?t enough RAM, and battery life is already stretched thin. Apple could do it now, but they couldn?t do it well, so they will wait.
The idea that Apple has been withholding features out of arrogance or evil and that I should therefore be "mad" is just, sorry, stupid.
There's been a tone of irrational Apple hatred that has taken hold in these forums, as more and more PC users register, for whatever reason. Ironically, it's the most irrational of these that seem the most determined to regard anyone who doesn't want to join in with their Apple bashing as "fan boys" or "sheeple" or "posers" or whatever the slur du jour is.
Apple makes mistakes. It seems, at times, to crave purity over functionality in ways that bug me. I think, at the moment, that their computer hardware is generally overpriced, given the market. I wish they would make a midpriced desktop. I wish they would do more with Apple TV.
But I don't happen to think that Apple is fucking with me, just to be doing it. I don't think Apple is so besot with power and hubris that they do crazy, evil things and laugh.
I think they're a competitive company whose choices are driven by a singular vision, almost uniquely in the CE industry. Sometimes that yields groundbreaking new products, sometimes that leads to cul-de-sacs. But either way, I generally enjoy their products, which is why I spend time on an Apple enthusiast site.
And I have to say, I'm getting a little tired of the smug, mocking, utterly douche-baggy bullshit that seems to increase by the day from people who have no idea why anyone might prize what Apple does over other choices.
How about some of you go over to a PC site and try running Apple triumphalism they way you run your PC shit here? See how long you last.
Appleinsider is constantly shown in news links through google, as if it's an unbiased source of information. It's a joke plain and simple.
Your posts are so hostile that they are a joke. There are thousands of publications, print and otherwise. You have a choice to read, or not read, any one of them.
Generally, most intelligent people don't read what they don't like.
Insulting the site, and it's readers, doesn't help your credibility.
If you would like to have a real discussion, then fine. If you've been reading the site, as you CLAIM to have done, then you would see that members criticize it at times.
That's fine. I do it as well. Bur if you're just going to be mean spirited, then please do it elsewhere.
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Talk to any developer who's app has been denied by Apple.
Have fun being told what you can and can't do with something you "own."
As far as apps go, just a very small percentage have been denied. It turns out that Google is also denying apps. And I'd be willing to bet, so do all the others.
I feel compelled to say this again: there is an easy way that Apple could address at least some, if not the majority, of user needs for "multitasking" if they simply allowed developers to plug into the three backgrounding apps you already have, Phone, SMS and iPod.
If, for instance, Skype could plug the VOIP side of their application into Phone, then all of the features people want Skype to have instantly appear. Since Phone is always running, it would keep you logged into Skype and thereby allow incoming calls at any time. It would also mean you could exit your conversation to use other apps, not get kicked off when another call comes in, and lets you use a single interface for all your calling duties.
Likewise, Skype's chat side should be plugged into the SMS app, which is already on its way to being renamed "Messages". Pandora would plug into iPod.
Yes, this would not solve problems with things like loopd, but it would still solve a LOT of problems with practically zero cost.
Maury
You can't use Skype with the phone part of the device. It only works through Wifi.
Pandora wouldn't work because it needs the internet connection all the time it's on. The iPod doesn't use it.
At what point does someone stop being an objective consumer? At what point did you guys stop demanding a better product from Apple? It's obvious people here don't care about an honest opinion if it in any way goes against Apple. Do you limit your narrowed one way thinking to Apple products or do you apply this arrogant view to other things? I mean, do you drive one type of car or buy one type of cereal?
A lot of limitations of the iphone are artificial, and put in place by Apple for bad reasons. It's a great phone, so much so in fact that when I got rid of it, I ended up buying an ipod touch, but doesn't it frustrate you guys that something like copy and paste only comes around when another company steps up to the plate and offers a serious contender? Face it, Apple could have given everyone copy and paste from day one, but they didn't. It wasn't until the Pre was just around the corner that Apple decided to "revolutionize" the industry with something that's been around since 1993. This is typical Apple behavior, and you fanboys allow it to happen by bending over backwards and accepting it with open cheeks.
Take my advice: Never stop seeing the BS Apple feeds you. When you become a consumer who buys things because you are told to buy them, you actually inhibit innovation.
Do you understand about product development? Apparently not.
Do you know that it took Win Mobile until version 3 to get cut&paste? I guess not. Do you know that Palm had years of development with its PDA's before it got cut&paste working? No?
The same is true of the others. It's not the same doing this for a very limited handheld, as opposed to a full fledged computer. So now Apple has what is being called by third parties one of, if not the best implementations of this.
You would rather Apple copy some of the crappy versions?
Just having a feature is better than doing it well?
Apple already addressed the problems of Skype-like applications with iPhone OS 3.0. Those apps do not need to be running if they get a notification when they need it. There are applications that can't benefit from this. In many cases they do not need to run in the background as well, but receive notifications on location change, by a timer etc.
Nope, it doesn't solve this problem at all. In the case of Skype, it would, for instance, fail to keep you logged into Skype, which is the way Skype presence information works. It's also far too slow. If you're not logged into Skype, the startup time for that app is long enough that people would just hang up on you. Nor does it allow you to use your existing phone book and single UI, nor exit the UI to run another app while you continue to hold a conversation. Did you even read the list of advantages?
Your list of points about the Pre are off topic for this sub-thread. Again, Apple should allow anything that is phone-like to plug into Phone, anything that is chat-like to plug into Chat, and anything that is music-like to plug into iPod. This would cover at least 90% of the complaints, dramatically improve the system functionality as a whole, and provide a single well-understood UI for new apps as they come along. It's win-win-win.
I do have the fullest understanding of what a better product is, and I never said you are stupid and I am smart. It speaks volumes that you read my statements this way. Someone with an opinion different from yours must be attacking you right? That's interesting...
The fact that their are hundreds of models of phones all with different functions and advantages I would would argue that there is no such thing as the truly best product.
What gives Chronster the fullest understanding of a better product? Outside of a healthy dose of hubris.
You have used a lot of pejorative terms to describe the people on this web list. Terms that clearly question our ability to reason and think critically.
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Well, as a software developer, I must say this is a pretty funny statement.
People like to use self proclaimed titles, it doesn't mean much.
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Again, excuses excuses excuses. The iphone is a smart phone is it not? What kind of smart phone can't do copy and paste? It's a simple function that should have been implemented from day one. I have no doubt in my mind that Apple had the code, but used this as just one of those "future enhancements" they implement to keep people from switching to another phone just at the right moment (Pre is right around the corner.)
This type of statement brings your software developer credentials into question. No mobile phone platform started from version 1 with all of the features it currently has. None of them. They all added features over a number of years.
Again you leave out the fact that computers and other phones use cursor pointers and stylus, none of them used the finger for copy and paste. The finger intorduces a different challenge for implementing copy and paste.
Seems you want to bury your head in the sand and ignore this in favor of your complaints about Apple. But then you are a software developer.
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Hey let me ask you this, when tegra comes out, you think Apple will allow video recording? Hmm, maybe you guys can line up around the block then to get something your phone is already capable of.
There's no evidence that most people care about video recording, I would imagine its most popular for those under 20.
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Tell that to the reviewers.
The reviewers who watched Palm representatives demonstrate the Pre, but were never able to touch it?
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Wake up! You're proving my point and you don't even see it. Why do you think so many people jailbreak their iphones? They shouldn't have to do that!
Seems you are the one who is not interested in being objective. Its obvious you are more interested in complaining about Apple using unfounded conjecture with no information to support your conclusions.
Apple should allow anything that is phone-like to plug into Phone, anything that is chat-like to plug into Chat, and anything that is music-like to plug into iPod [...] dramatically improve the system functionality as a whole, and provide a single well-understood UI for new apps as they come along.
It's amazing that someone can actually believe that.
At what point does someone stop being an objective consumer?
Chronster,
That is one of the rudest posts I have seen in quite a while.
We are all consumers and all want something that is great for our personal needs. We are all experts in our personal requirements.
Every device is a bunch of compromises. Size battery life, CPU power, GPU power. Open-ness and so on all influence each other. You can't have one thing without reducing another.
So you design a device, and take a bunch of hard engineering decisions and hard design decisions. And the market let's you know your score out of ten.
Palm has made some interesting choices. To basically ship a device with a cool web browser - and then deliver all functionality through web-apps which run under that browser. It is a brilliant idea. But it's a compromise. We will see how well it works out.
Apple made a ton of decisions that are utterly different to the decisions of Nokia, Microsoft and Palm. The mobile space was well established before Apple appeared, and the standard way of doing things was nailed-down. Apple took a lot of decisions which went at 90 degrees to the received wisdom.
Apple said, in the clearest possible way, we don't agree X is important, we think Y is much more important. Clearly that upset some folks. Especially those who are invested in X.
Are these good design decision or bad design decisions?
Depends on the user.
But whatever Apple did right or wrong. It did not harm the sales of the device. Consumers don't run out of the Apple Store screaming, "This is bullshit, this thing does not multi-task". Instead the iPhone sells pretty good numbers. So well in fact that other companies feel the need to produce more iPhone-like devices.
And looking at the web market share, iPhone users go off and start using it as a mobile internet device, in a way that none of its predecessors ever got used.
Sure, iPhone is a bag of compromises. Just like the Pre, or WinMo or Symbian is.
But to make out that the iPhone is full of artificial shortcomings and dumb compromises and that consumers are blinded by the glowing white logo, is just plain rude.
WinMo has had cut and paste forever. Anyone want a WinMo phone?
You can't use Skype with the phone part of the device. It only works through Wifi.
Excellent. And because its always running, being part of Phone, the presence portion of the Skype stack is running and would be able to determine whether or not it has Wi-Fi and change your Skype status. You might wish it to show you as Busy, or perhaps another status that shows you available for Chat only. Better yet, when you clicked Dial inside Phone, the existing "Call" icon would remain lit, but the menu that appears when you held the button down would have the "Skype to Skype" and "SkypeOut" options dimmed out with a little icon that says "needs Wi-Fi". As soon as you entered a Wi-Fi area and connected, Skype's status would update to allow people to call you on Skype directly, as well as making the buttons inside Phone work so I could just use SkypeOut from the Call button. Best of all, there would be a preference that allowed me to say that if I am connected to Wi-Fi, or a particular set of Wi-Fi's, that all outbound Calls should default to Skype.
So now your iPhone allows people to get to you in a myriad of new low-cost paths, without you having to learn anything at all. Everything you know about making a phone call using Phone continues to work perfectly. And we could also have plugins for GChat, iChat, MSN, SIP and WMA. The carriers would LOVE to have WMA on the iPhone. And all of this would work without need for background apps, save those that already exists.
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Originally Posted by melgross
Pandora wouldn't work because it needs the internet connection all the time it's on. The iPod doesn't use it.
I have no idea what your point is here. What does this have to do with it plugging into the iPod app on my iPhone?
Excellent. And because its always running, being part of Phone, the presence portion of the Skype stack is running and would be able to determine whether or not it has Wi-Fi and change your Skype status. You might wish it to show you as Busy, or perhaps another status that shows you available for Chat only. Better yet, when you clicked Dial inside Phone, the existing "Call" icon would remain lit, but the menu that appears when you held the button down would have the "Skype to Skype" and "SkypeOut" options dimmed out with a little icon that says "needs Wi-Fi". As soon as you entered a Wi-Fi area and connected, Skype's status would update to allow people to call you on Skype directly, as well as making the buttons inside Phone work so I could just use SkypeOut from the Call button. Best of all, there would be a preference that allowed me to say that if I am connected to Wi-Fi, or a particular set of Wi-Fi's, that all outbound Calls should default to Skype.
So now your iPhone allows people to get to you in a myriad of new low-cost paths, without you having to learn anything at all. Everything you know about making a phone call using Phone continues to work perfectly. And we could also have plugins for GChat, iChat, MSN, SIP and WMA. The carriers would LOVE to have WMA on the iPhone. And all of this would work without need for background apps, save those that already exists.
I have no idea what your point is here. What does this have to do with it plugging into the iPod app on my iPhone?
Maury
The lack of rationale thought in that post is so incredibly perplexing. Maury can't actually be believing the words he is writing. There are so many glaring inaccuracies that I wouldn't even know where to being. Simply astounding!
It's amazing that someone can actually believe that.
That's funny because I'm suffering from the same feeling right now. Your content-free post doesn't say exactly why you came to this conclusion, so let's explore this:
1) do you like having your conversations cut off when someone else calls you on GSM?
2) perhaps you enjoy having to set up the same contacts list in several different apps?
3) you just think its a good idea to pay more for phone calls?
Really, if you don't think having a single app handle all of your related media, perhaps you could explain Google Phone, or Adium? Or perhaps you just didn't understand the comment?
The fact that their are hundreds of models of phones all with different functions and advantages I would would argue that there is no such thing as the truly best product.
What an insightful and genius comment. Did you come up with that all on your own?
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
What gives Chronster the fullest understanding of a better product? Outside of a healthy dose of hubris.
Common sense actually. I didn't accept the fact that Apple said the iphone couldn't do something (when clearly it could) so I got rid of it. I could sit down with any phone and tell you how to make it better, it's just common sense. Ironic you tell anyone they have a "healthy dose of hubris" just because they can think this way.
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
You have used a lot of pejorative terms to describe the people on this web list. Terms that clearly question our ability to reason and think critically.
Ah, but I never said you were stupid and I was smart. Now you're just trying to pick a personal fight with me and going off subject.
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
People like to use self proclaimed titles, it doesn't mean much.
Depends on the subject matter. I don't go to the grocery store and say "As a SOFTWARE DEVELOPAAAA, I shal take the smoked turkey breast!" When someone tells me I don't know what I'm talking about with a subject such as this, I tend to throw that out there.
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
This type of statement brings your software developer credentials into question. No mobile phone platform started from version 1 with all of the features it currently has. None of them. They all added features over a number of years.
Again you leave out the fact that computers and other phones use cursor pointers and stylus, none of them used the finger for copy and paste. The finger intorduces a different challenge for implementing copy and paste.
Newton MessagePad had copy and paste back in 1993, and you're telling me the geniuses at Apple couldn't come up with a solution? Jeesh
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
Seems you want to bury your head in the sand and ignore this in favor of your complaints about Apple. But then you are a software developer.
So my few complaints about Apple overshadow the fact that I've already owned an iphone, and liked it enough that I bought an ipod touch after getting rid of it? Wow man. Just wow. I didn't simply accept the devices short comings as "the way it is" which is why I got a Touch Pro. But then, I am a software developer.
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
There's no evidence that most people care about video recording, I would imagine its most popular for those under 20.
Hmmm yeah you're right. It's not documented anywhere that video recording is cared about by anyone in the demographic of ages 20 and above, therefore, it must not be something you should care about. Amazing how easily you can be programmed. If there was evidence that most people did care about sticking a vibrating iphone up their ass, and it was most popular for those above 20, would you fight for lube to be included with your purchase of an iphone?
Quote:
Originally Posted by TenoBell
The reviewers who watched Palm representatives demonstrate the Pre, but were never able to touch it?
Really? You haven't seen all the reviews people posted where they got to play with the phone at CES? How could you know anything about it if you refuse to read what first hand experiences are like? Christ man.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TenoBell
Seems you are the one who is not interested in being objective. Its obvious you are more interested in complaining about Apple using unfounded conjecture with no information to support your conclusions.
Seems I'm the ONLY one who's interested in being objective. I haven't been completely illogical in my argument, you just simply don't agree so suddenly I'm some idiot ranting for no reason. I MEAN ITS NOT LIKE I OWNED THE DAMN THING RIGHT!? LOL
That's funny because I'm suffering from the same feeling right now. Your content-free post doesn't say exactly why you came to this conclusion, so let's explore this:
1) do you like having your conversations cut off when someone else calls you on GSM?
2) perhaps you enjoy having to set up the same contacts list in several different apps?
3) you just think its a good idea to pay more for phone calls?
Really, if you don't think having a single app handle all of your related media, perhaps you could explain Google Phone, or Adium? Or perhaps you just didn't understand the comment?
Maury
1) You are much more likely to have your conversation dropped or paused form a lack of priority-based QoS voice routing with VoIP on a handheld trying to traverse different cellular data network and open and closed WiFi hotspots while traveling.
2) I don't enjoy it, which is why I have an iPhone and a MobileMe acccount. My Skype and fringe apps have a contact list that is downloaded and maintained on the Skype server, but Apple has created an API that allows for the access to the Contacts DB on the iPhone.
But you don't want that, you want any and all VoIP app to hijack the phone app and integrate with it, yet you somehow think this will make the app more stable. That is what befuddles me.
3) How does this make any sense to ask? No ones wants to pay more for a phone call of the same quality and reliability, but that isn't what you are proposing. You are proposing that a VoIP app takes over my iPhone's phone app. This VoIP app will then dicate what kind of call I should be making.
So if it sees a Linksys WiFi hotspot, which I connected to at some point and which was open, but this one has blocked certain MAC addresses from getting access or has a low bandwidth or congested network so the call I was on essentially stops as I am traveling down the road. The point of a phone is to have a phone to use when you need it. VoIP is great for saving a few dimes, specially for international calls, but they aren't a good replacement to auto-detect the best network on a mobile.
That is one of the rudest posts I have seen in quite a while.
We are all consumers and all want something that is great for our personal needs. We are all experts in our personal requirements.
Every device is a bunch of compromises. Size battery life, CPU power, GPU power. Open-ness and so on all influence each other. You can't have one thing without reducing another.
So you design a device, and take a bunch of hard engineering decisions and hard design decisions. And the market let's you know your score out of ten.
Palm has made some interesting choices. To basically ship a device with a cool web browser - and then deliver all functionality through web-apps which run under that browser. It is a brilliant idea. But it's a compromise. We will see how well it works out.
Apple made a ton of decisions that are utterly different to the decisions of Nokia, Microsoft and Palm. The mobile space was well established before Apple appeared, and the standard way of doing things was nailed-down. Apple took a lot of decisions which went at 90 degrees to the received wisdom.
Apple said, in the clearest possible way, we don't agree X is important, we think Y is much more important. Clearly that upset some folks. Especially those who are invested in X.
Are these good design decision or bad design decisions?
Depends on the user.
But whatever Apple did right or wrong. It did not harm the sales of the device. Consumers don't run out of the Apple Store screaming, "This is bullshit, this thing does not multi-task". Instead the iPhone sells pretty good numbers. So well in fact that other companies feel the need to produce more iPhone-like devices.
And looking at the web market share, iPhone users go off and start using it as a mobile internet device, in a way that none of its predecessors ever got used.
Sure, iPhone is a bag of compromises. Just like the Pre, or WinMo or Symbian is.
But to make out that the iPhone is full of artificial shortcomings and dumb compromises and that consumers are blinded by the glowing white logo, is just plain rude.
WinMo has had cut and paste forever. Anyone want a WinMo phone?
C.
I actually must say this is the first response I've gotten that I respect.
Excellent. And because its always running, being part of Phone, the presence portion of the Skype stack is running and would be able to determine whether or not it has Wi-Fi and change your Skype status. You might wish it to show you as Busy, or perhaps another status that shows you available for Chat only. Better yet, when you clicked Dial inside Phone, the existing "Call" icon would remain lit, but the menu that appears when you held the button down would have the "Skype to Skype" and "SkypeOut" options dimmed out with a little icon that says "needs Wi-Fi". As soon as you entered a Wi-Fi area and connected, Skype's status would update to allow people to call you on Skype directly, as well as making the buttons inside Phone work so I could just use SkypeOut from the Call button. Best of all, there would be a preference that allowed me to say that if I am connected to Wi-Fi, or a particular set of Wi-Fi's, that all outbound Calls should default to Skype.
So now your iPhone allows people to get to you in a myriad of new low-cost paths, without you having to learn anything at all. Everything you know about making a phone call using Phone continues to work perfectly. And we could also have plugins for GChat, iChat, MSN, SIP and WMA. The carriers would LOVE to have WMA on the iPhone. And all of this would work without need for background apps, save those that already exists.
I don't see the point to all this.
When you come into the range of a USABLE WiFi network, not something that common even in the middle of NYC, your phone can tell you. You can choose to join or not. Skype is only useful when IN that network. I don't see its usefulness for the 99% time it isn't.
Quote:
I have no idea what your point is here. What does this have to do with it plugging into the iPod app on my iPhone?
Maury
Just as I have no idea what your point is for it to use the iPod program.
Comments
At what point does someone stop being an objective consumer? At what point did you guys stop demanding a better product from Apple? It's obvious people here don't care about an honest opinion if it in any way goes against Apple. Do you limit your narrowed one way thinking to Apple products or do you apply this arrogant view to other things? I mean, do you drive one type of car or buy one type of cereal?
A lot of limitations of the iphone are artificial, and put in place by Apple for bad reasons. It's a great phone, so much so in fact that when I got rid of it, I ended up buying an ipod touch, but doesn't it frustrate you guys that something like copy and paste only comes around when another company steps up to the plate and offers a serious contender? Face it, Apple could have given everyone copy and paste from day one, but they didn't. It wasn't until the Pre was just around the corner that Apple decided to "revolutionize" the industry with something that's been around since 1993. This is typical Apple behavior, and you fanboys allow it to happen by bending over backwards and accepting it with open cheeks.
Take my advice: Never stop seeing the BS Apple feeds you. When you become a consumer who buys things because you are told to buy them, you actually inhibit innovation.
At what point does someone stop being an objective consumer? At what point did you guys stop demanding a better product from Apple? It's obvious people here don't care about an honest opinion if it in any way goes against Apple. Do you limit your narrowed one way thinking to Apple products or do you apply this arrogant view to other things? I mean, do you drive one type of car or buy one type of cereal?
Well the problem with your statements is that you assume you have the fullest understanding of what a better product is and that we don't. Starting a discussion by saying you are stupid and I am smart is not the best way to begin.
A lot of limitations of the iphone are artificial, and put in place by Apple for bad reasons.
That is your opinion but what ultimately determines if Apple has made good choices are sales and profits.
It's a great phone, so much so in fact that when I got rid of it, I ended up buying an ipod touch, but doesn't it frustrate you guys that something like copy and paste only comes around when another company steps up to the plate and offers a serious contender? Face it, Apple could have given everyone copy and paste from day one, but they didn't. It wasn't until the Pre was just around the corner that Apple decided to "revolutionize" the industry with something that's been around since 1993. This is typical Apple behavior, and you fanboys allow it to happen by bending over backwards and accepting it with open cheeks.
This is your misunderstanding of the finer detail of how these things work. People come on these forums and take a stance as though they know so much and then make statements that clearly show they don't know what they are talking about at all.
Functionality in software does not just happen by magic. People have to sit and write code, that code has be tested and perfected before it gets to the point of being usable. Every company has a limit in the number of talented people it can use to write this code. So they have to build software is stages and add functionality incrementally. Companies have to choose what software is most important to add sooner and what can wait until later. These choices have to be made and their is no way to do it any faster.
Part of the reason why it has taken copy and paste so long is because copy and paste on a finger touch screen is new. Its an entirely different problem from a pixel accurate pointer or a stylus. The BlackBerry Storm has finger touch copy and paste and all of the reviews says its horrible.
Another part of the reason it has taken so long is because once Apple choose the copy and paste gesture they are stuck with it. They likely took their time in figuring out what would be the best gesture for copy/paste to make sure they will not need to change it later.
No Apple did not suddenly add copy and paste simply because the Pre was announced with copy and paste. Mind you the Pre is not yet an available product, no one has used it to judge how well it works. Apple would have had to plan what was going to be in the iPhone 3.0 months if not over a year ago, long before the Pre was ever known about. They cannot just flip and switch and suddenly add features, iPhone 3.0 was planned long ago.
Take my advice: Never stop seeing the BS Apple feeds you. When you become a consumer who buys things because you are told to buy them, you actually inhibit innovation.
Discussions on the list would be much more productive and informative if people actually came with real substantive information, not accusations and low brow name calling.
If you want that you need to go to Engadget.
Well the problem with your statements is that you assume you have the fullest understanding of what a better product is and that we don't. Starting a discussion by saying you are stupid and I am smart is not the best way to begin.
I do have the fullest understanding of what a better product is, and I never said you are stupid and I am smart. It speaks volumes that you read my statements this way. Someone with an opinion different from yours must be attacking you right? That's interesting...
That is your opinion but what ultimately determines if Apple has made good choices are sales and profits.
Really? You know the pet rock did pretty good...
This is your misunderstanding of the finer detail of how these things work. People come on these forums and take a stance as though they know so much and then make statements that clearly show they don't know what they are talking about at all.
Well, as a software developer, I must say this is a pretty funny statement.
Functionality in software does not just happen by magic. People have to sit and write code, that code has be tested and perfected before it gets to the point of being usable. Every company has a limit in the number of talented people it can use to write this code. So they have to build software is stages and add functionality incrementally. Companies have to choose what software is most important to add sooner and what can wait until later. These choices have to be made and their is no way to do it any faster.
Again, excuses excuses excuses. The iphone is a smart phone is it not? What kind of smart phone can't do copy and paste? It's a simple function that should have been implemented from day one. I have no doubt in my mind that Apple had the code, but used this as just one of those "future enhancements" they implement to keep people from switching to another phone just at the right moment (Pre is right around the corner.)
Hey let me ask you this, when tegra comes out, you think Apple will allow video recording? Hmm, maybe you guys can line up around the block then to get something your phone is already capable of.
Part of the reason why it has taken copy and paste so long is because copy and paste on a finger touch screen is new. Its an entirely different problem from a pixel accurate pointer or a stylus. The BlackBerry Storm has finger touch copy and paste and all of the reviews says its horrible.
Excuses
Another part of the reason it has taken so long is because once Apple choose the copy and paste gesture they are stuck with it. They likely took their time in figuring out what would be the best gesture for copy/paste to make sure they will not need to change it later.
Excuses
No Apple did not suddenly add copy and paste simply because the Pre was announced with copy and paste.
Yes they did.
Mind you the Pre is not yet an available product, no one has used it to judge how well it works.
Tell that to the reviewers.
Apple would have had to plan what was going to be in the iPhone 3.0 months if not over a year ago, long before the Pre was ever known about.
You're absolutely correct. You see, Apple DID plan what was going into 3.0 long ago, but much longer than you think. Artificial limitations are easy to fix, and are better appreciated just before the competition hits the market.
They cannot just flip and switch and suddenly add features, iPhone 3.0 was planned long ago.
No, I'm sure it isn't as simple as flipping a switch. A group of greedy corporate big wigs have to agree to flip that switch, and when, and that's really hard work!
Discussions on the list would be much more productive and informative if people actually came with real substantive information, not accusations and low brow name calling.
If you want that you need to go to Engadget.
Wake up! You're proving my point and you don't even see it. Why do you think so many people jailbreak their iphones? They shouldn't have to do that!
It's a great explication of how good platform development works, as it relates to the iPhone.
Basically, Apple knew they were building a new, hopefully successful, necessarily extensible platform. As such, they had to get the nuts and bolts right. It was more important to get the frameworks and underpinnings right then it was to put the bells and whistles in, because when you get he former right the latter will come.
This is the opposite of what most phone manufacturers are doing, which is to concentrate on bells and whistles at the expense of having any kind of robust, extensible, well thought out and future proof framework.
The iPhone was not conceived merely as a single device or a one-time creation. It?s a platform. A framework engineered for the long-run. The iPhone didn?t and doesn?t need MMS or a better camera or a video camera or more storage or cut/copy/paste or GPS mapping or note syncing, because the framework was in place so that Apple could add these things, and much more, later ? either through software updates or through new hardware designs. The way to build a complex device with all the features you want is not to start by trying to build a device with all those features, but rather to start with the fundamentals, and then iterate and evolve.
There?s no better example than background tasks. The problem isn?t that the iPhone OS isn?t technically capable of pre-emptive multitasking, like the old Mac OS. Some of Apple?s own apps ? like MobileSafari, the phone app, the audio player, the new-to-3.0 Voice Memos ? already continue running when in the background. In fact, because it?s built on the same Unix underpinnings as Mac OS X, Apple had to do more work to create the upcoming push notification system than they would have had to do to just enable background processing for third-party apps. Scott Forstall said as much on stage during the iPhone OS 3.0 special event. The problem is not the software but the hardware ? the current CPU is too slow, there isn?t enough RAM, and battery life is already stretched thin. Apple could do it now, but they couldn?t do it well, so they will wait.
The idea that Apple has been withholding features out of arrogance or evil and that I should therefore be "mad" is just, sorry, stupid.
There's been a tone of irrational Apple hatred that has taken hold in these forums, as more and more PC users register, for whatever reason. Ironically, it's the most irrational of these that seem the most determined to regard anyone who doesn't want to join in with their Apple bashing as "fan boys" or "sheeple" or "posers" or whatever the slur du jour is.
Apple makes mistakes. It seems, at times, to crave purity over functionality in ways that bug me. I think, at the moment, that their computer hardware is generally overpriced, given the market. I wish they would make a midpriced desktop. I wish they would do more with Apple TV.
But I don't happen to think that Apple is fucking with me, just to be doing it. I don't think Apple is so besot with power and hubris that they do crazy, evil things and laugh.
I think they're a competitive company whose choices are driven by a singular vision, almost uniquely in the CE industry. Sometimes that yields groundbreaking new products, sometimes that leads to cul-de-sacs. But either way, I generally enjoy their products, which is why I spend time on an Apple enthusiast site.
And I have to say, I'm getting a little tired of the smug, mocking, utterly douche-baggy bullshit that seems to increase by the day from people who have no idea why anyone might prize what Apple does over other choices.
How about some of you go over to a PC site and try running Apple triumphalism they way you run your PC shit here? See how long you last.
registration took all of 20 seconds.
Appleinsider is constantly shown in news links through google, as if it's an unbiased source of information. It's a joke plain and simple.
Your posts are so hostile that they are a joke. There are thousands of publications, print and otherwise. You have a choice to read, or not read, any one of them.
Generally, most intelligent people don't read what they don't like.
Insulting the site, and it's readers, doesn't help your credibility.
If you would like to have a real discussion, then fine. If you've been reading the site, as you CLAIM to have done, then you would see that members criticize it at times.
That's fine. I do it as well. Bur if you're just going to be mean spirited, then please do it elsewhere.
Talk to any developer who's app has been denied by Apple.
Have fun being told what you can and can't do with something you "own."
As far as apps go, just a very small percentage have been denied. It turns out that Google is also denying apps. And I'd be willing to bet, so do all the others.
I feel compelled to say this again: there is an easy way that Apple could address at least some, if not the majority, of user needs for "multitasking" if they simply allowed developers to plug into the three backgrounding apps you already have, Phone, SMS and iPod.
If, for instance, Skype could plug the VOIP side of their application into Phone, then all of the features people want Skype to have instantly appear. Since Phone is always running, it would keep you logged into Skype and thereby allow incoming calls at any time. It would also mean you could exit your conversation to use other apps, not get kicked off when another call comes in, and lets you use a single interface for all your calling duties.
Likewise, Skype's chat side should be plugged into the SMS app, which is already on its way to being renamed "Messages". Pandora would plug into iPod.
Yes, this would not solve problems with things like loopd, but it would still solve a LOT of problems with practically zero cost.
Maury
You can't use Skype with the phone part of the device. It only works through Wifi.
Pandora wouldn't work because it needs the internet connection all the time it's on. The iPod doesn't use it.
At what point does someone stop being an objective consumer? At what point did you guys stop demanding a better product from Apple? It's obvious people here don't care about an honest opinion if it in any way goes against Apple. Do you limit your narrowed one way thinking to Apple products or do you apply this arrogant view to other things? I mean, do you drive one type of car or buy one type of cereal?
A lot of limitations of the iphone are artificial, and put in place by Apple for bad reasons. It's a great phone, so much so in fact that when I got rid of it, I ended up buying an ipod touch, but doesn't it frustrate you guys that something like copy and paste only comes around when another company steps up to the plate and offers a serious contender? Face it, Apple could have given everyone copy and paste from day one, but they didn't. It wasn't until the Pre was just around the corner that Apple decided to "revolutionize" the industry with something that's been around since 1993. This is typical Apple behavior, and you fanboys allow it to happen by bending over backwards and accepting it with open cheeks.
Take my advice: Never stop seeing the BS Apple feeds you. When you become a consumer who buys things because you are told to buy them, you actually inhibit innovation.
Do you understand about product development? Apparently not.
Do you know that it took Win Mobile until version 3 to get cut&paste? I guess not. Do you know that Palm had years of development with its PDA's before it got cut&paste working? No?
The same is true of the others. It's not the same doing this for a very limited handheld, as opposed to a full fledged computer. So now Apple has what is being called by third parties one of, if not the best implementations of this.
You would rather Apple copy some of the crappy versions?
Just having a feature is better than doing it well?
I suppose you now have a Win Mobile phone.
You're so full of giving advice.
Apple already addressed the problems of Skype-like applications with iPhone OS 3.0. Those apps do not need to be running if they get a notification when they need it. There are applications that can't benefit from this. In many cases they do not need to run in the background as well, but receive notifications on location change, by a timer etc.
Nope, it doesn't solve this problem at all. In the case of Skype, it would, for instance, fail to keep you logged into Skype, which is the way Skype presence information works. It's also far too slow. If you're not logged into Skype, the startup time for that app is long enough that people would just hang up on you. Nor does it allow you to use your existing phone book and single UI, nor exit the UI to run another app while you continue to hold a conversation. Did you even read the list of advantages?
Your list of points about the Pre are off topic for this sub-thread. Again, Apple should allow anything that is phone-like to plug into Phone, anything that is chat-like to plug into Chat, and anything that is music-like to plug into iPod. This would cover at least 90% of the complaints, dramatically improve the system functionality as a whole, and provide a single well-understood UI for new apps as they come along. It's win-win-win.
Maury
I do have the fullest understanding of what a better product is, and I never said you are stupid and I am smart. It speaks volumes that you read my statements this way. Someone with an opinion different from yours must be attacking you right? That's interesting...
The fact that their are hundreds of models of phones all with different functions and advantages I would would argue that there is no such thing as the truly best product.
What gives Chronster the fullest understanding of a better product? Outside of a healthy dose of hubris.
You have used a lot of pejorative terms to describe the people on this web list. Terms that clearly question our ability to reason and think critically.
Well, as a software developer, I must say this is a pretty funny statement.
People like to use self proclaimed titles, it doesn't mean much.
Again, excuses excuses excuses. The iphone is a smart phone is it not? What kind of smart phone can't do copy and paste? It's a simple function that should have been implemented from day one. I have no doubt in my mind that Apple had the code, but used this as just one of those "future enhancements" they implement to keep people from switching to another phone just at the right moment (Pre is right around the corner.)
This type of statement brings your software developer credentials into question. No mobile phone platform started from version 1 with all of the features it currently has. None of them. They all added features over a number of years.
Again you leave out the fact that computers and other phones use cursor pointers and stylus, none of them used the finger for copy and paste. The finger intorduces a different challenge for implementing copy and paste.
Seems you want to bury your head in the sand and ignore this in favor of your complaints about Apple. But then you are a software developer.
Hey let me ask you this, when tegra comes out, you think Apple will allow video recording? Hmm, maybe you guys can line up around the block then to get something your phone is already capable of.
There's no evidence that most people care about video recording, I would imagine its most popular for those under 20.
Tell that to the reviewers.
The reviewers who watched Palm representatives demonstrate the Pre, but were never able to touch it?
Wake up! You're proving my point and you don't even see it. Why do you think so many people jailbreak their iphones? They shouldn't have to do that!
Seems you are the one who is not interested in being objective. Its obvious you are more interested in complaining about Apple using unfounded conjecture with no information to support your conclusions.
Apple should allow anything that is phone-like to plug into Phone, anything that is chat-like to plug into Chat, and anything that is music-like to plug into iPod [...] dramatically improve the system functionality as a whole, and provide a single well-understood UI for new apps as they come along.
It's amazing that someone can actually believe that.
At what point does someone stop being an objective consumer?
Chronster,
That is one of the rudest posts I have seen in quite a while.
We are all consumers and all want something that is great for our personal needs. We are all experts in our personal requirements.
Every device is a bunch of compromises. Size battery life, CPU power, GPU power. Open-ness and so on all influence each other. You can't have one thing without reducing another.
So you design a device, and take a bunch of hard engineering decisions and hard design decisions. And the market let's you know your score out of ten.
Palm has made some interesting choices. To basically ship a device with a cool web browser - and then deliver all functionality through web-apps which run under that browser. It is a brilliant idea. But it's a compromise. We will see how well it works out.
Apple made a ton of decisions that are utterly different to the decisions of Nokia, Microsoft and Palm. The mobile space was well established before Apple appeared, and the standard way of doing things was nailed-down. Apple took a lot of decisions which went at 90 degrees to the received wisdom.
Apple said, in the clearest possible way, we don't agree X is important, we think Y is much more important. Clearly that upset some folks. Especially those who are invested in X.
Are these good design decision or bad design decisions?
Depends on the user.
But whatever Apple did right or wrong. It did not harm the sales of the device. Consumers don't run out of the Apple Store screaming, "This is bullshit, this thing does not multi-task". Instead the iPhone sells pretty good numbers. So well in fact that other companies feel the need to produce more iPhone-like devices.
And looking at the web market share, iPhone users go off and start using it as a mobile internet device, in a way that none of its predecessors ever got used.
Sure, iPhone is a bag of compromises. Just like the Pre, or WinMo or Symbian is.
But to make out that the iPhone is full of artificial shortcomings and dumb compromises and that consumers are blinded by the glowing white logo, is just plain rude.
WinMo has had cut and paste forever. Anyone want a WinMo phone?
C.
You can't use Skype with the phone part of the device. It only works through Wifi.
Excellent. And because its always running, being part of Phone, the presence portion of the Skype stack is running and would be able to determine whether or not it has Wi-Fi and change your Skype status. You might wish it to show you as Busy, or perhaps another status that shows you available for Chat only. Better yet, when you clicked Dial inside Phone, the existing "Call" icon would remain lit, but the menu that appears when you held the button down would have the "Skype to Skype" and "SkypeOut" options dimmed out with a little icon that says "needs Wi-Fi". As soon as you entered a Wi-Fi area and connected, Skype's status would update to allow people to call you on Skype directly, as well as making the buttons inside Phone work so I could just use SkypeOut from the Call button. Best of all, there would be a preference that allowed me to say that if I am connected to Wi-Fi, or a particular set of Wi-Fi's, that all outbound Calls should default to Skype.
So now your iPhone allows people to get to you in a myriad of new low-cost paths, without you having to learn anything at all. Everything you know about making a phone call using Phone continues to work perfectly. And we could also have plugins for GChat, iChat, MSN, SIP and WMA. The carriers would LOVE to have WMA on the iPhone. And all of this would work without need for background apps, save those that already exists.
Pandora wouldn't work because it needs the internet connection all the time it's on. The iPod doesn't use it.
I have no idea what your point is here. What does this have to do with it plugging into the iPod app on my iPhone?
Maury
Excellent. And because its always running, being part of Phone, the presence portion of the Skype stack is running and would be able to determine whether or not it has Wi-Fi and change your Skype status. You might wish it to show you as Busy, or perhaps another status that shows you available for Chat only. Better yet, when you clicked Dial inside Phone, the existing "Call" icon would remain lit, but the menu that appears when you held the button down would have the "Skype to Skype" and "SkypeOut" options dimmed out with a little icon that says "needs Wi-Fi". As soon as you entered a Wi-Fi area and connected, Skype's status would update to allow people to call you on Skype directly, as well as making the buttons inside Phone work so I could just use SkypeOut from the Call button. Best of all, there would be a preference that allowed me to say that if I am connected to Wi-Fi, or a particular set of Wi-Fi's, that all outbound Calls should default to Skype.
So now your iPhone allows people to get to you in a myriad of new low-cost paths, without you having to learn anything at all. Everything you know about making a phone call using Phone continues to work perfectly. And we could also have plugins for GChat, iChat, MSN, SIP and WMA. The carriers would LOVE to have WMA on the iPhone. And all of this would work without need for background apps, save those that already exists.
I have no idea what your point is here. What does this have to do with it plugging into the iPod app on my iPhone?
Maury
The lack of rationale thought in that post is so incredibly perplexing. Maury can't actually be believing the words he is writing. There are so many glaring inaccuracies that I wouldn't even know where to being. Simply astounding!
It's amazing that someone can actually believe that.
That's funny because I'm suffering from the same feeling right now. Your content-free post doesn't say exactly why you came to this conclusion, so let's explore this:
1) do you like having your conversations cut off when someone else calls you on GSM?
2) perhaps you enjoy having to set up the same contacts list in several different apps?
3) you just think its a good idea to pay more for phone calls?
Really, if you don't think having a single app handle all of your related media, perhaps you could explain Google Phone, or Adium? Or perhaps you just didn't understand the comment?
Maury
The fact that their are hundreds of models of phones all with different functions and advantages I would would argue that there is no such thing as the truly best product.
What an insightful and genius comment. Did you come up with that all on your own?
What gives Chronster the fullest understanding of a better product? Outside of a healthy dose of hubris.
Common sense actually. I didn't accept the fact that Apple said the iphone couldn't do something (when clearly it could) so I got rid of it. I could sit down with any phone and tell you how to make it better, it's just common sense. Ironic you tell anyone they have a "healthy dose of hubris" just because they can think this way.
You have used a lot of pejorative terms to describe the people on this web list. Terms that clearly question our ability to reason and think critically.
Ah, but I never said you were stupid and I was smart. Now you're just trying to pick a personal fight with me and going off subject.
People like to use self proclaimed titles, it doesn't mean much.
Depends on the subject matter. I don't go to the grocery store and say "As a SOFTWARE DEVELOPAAAA, I shal take the smoked turkey breast!" When someone tells me I don't know what I'm talking about with a subject such as this, I tend to throw that out there.
This type of statement brings your software developer credentials into question. No mobile phone platform started from version 1 with all of the features it currently has. None of them. They all added features over a number of years.
Again you leave out the fact that computers and other phones use cursor pointers and stylus, none of them used the finger for copy and paste. The finger intorduces a different challenge for implementing copy and paste.
Newton MessagePad had copy and paste back in 1993, and you're telling me the geniuses at Apple couldn't come up with a solution? Jeesh
Seems you want to bury your head in the sand and ignore this in favor of your complaints about Apple. But then you are a software developer.
So my few complaints about Apple overshadow the fact that I've already owned an iphone, and liked it enough that I bought an ipod touch after getting rid of it? Wow man. Just wow. I didn't simply accept the devices short comings as "the way it is" which is why I got a Touch Pro. But then, I am a software developer.
There's no evidence that most people care about video recording, I would imagine its most popular for those under 20.
Hmmm yeah you're right. It's not documented anywhere that video recording is cared about by anyone in the demographic of ages 20 and above, therefore, it must not be something you should care about. Amazing how easily you can be programmed. If there was evidence that most people did care about sticking a vibrating iphone up their ass, and it was most popular for those above 20, would you fight for lube to be included with your purchase of an iphone?
The reviewers who watched Palm representatives demonstrate the Pre, but were never able to touch it?
Really? You haven't seen all the reviews people posted where they got to play with the phone at CES? How could you know anything about it if you refuse to read what first hand experiences are like? Christ man.
Seems you are the one who is not interested in being objective. Its obvious you are more interested in complaining about Apple using unfounded conjecture with no information to support your conclusions.
Seems I'm the ONLY one who's interested in being objective. I haven't been completely illogical in my argument, you just simply don't agree so suddenly I'm some idiot ranting for no reason. I MEAN ITS NOT LIKE I OWNED THE DAMN THING RIGHT!? LOL
That's funny because I'm suffering from the same feeling right now. Your content-free post doesn't say exactly why you came to this conclusion, so let's explore this:
1) do you like having your conversations cut off when someone else calls you on GSM?
2) perhaps you enjoy having to set up the same contacts list in several different apps?
3) you just think its a good idea to pay more for phone calls?
Really, if you don't think having a single app handle all of your related media, perhaps you could explain Google Phone, or Adium? Or perhaps you just didn't understand the comment?
Maury
1) You are much more likely to have your conversation dropped or paused form a lack of priority-based QoS voice routing with VoIP on a handheld trying to traverse different cellular data network and open and closed WiFi hotspots while traveling.
2) I don't enjoy it, which is why I have an iPhone and a MobileMe acccount. My Skype and fringe apps have a contact list that is downloaded and maintained on the Skype server, but Apple has created an API that allows for the access to the Contacts DB on the iPhone.
But you don't want that, you want any and all VoIP app to hijack the phone app and integrate with it, yet you somehow think this will make the app more stable. That is what befuddles me.
3) How does this make any sense to ask? No ones wants to pay more for a phone call of the same quality and reliability, but that isn't what you are proposing. You are proposing that a VoIP app takes over my iPhone's phone app. This VoIP app will then dicate what kind of call I should be making.
So if it sees a Linksys WiFi hotspot, which I connected to at some point and which was open, but this one has blocked certain MAC addresses from getting access or has a low bandwidth or congested network so the call I was on essentially stops as I am traveling down the road. The point of a phone is to have a phone to use when you need it. VoIP is great for saving a few dimes, specially for international calls, but they aren't a good replacement to auto-detect the best network on a mobile.
Chronster,
That is one of the rudest posts I have seen in quite a while.
We are all consumers and all want something that is great for our personal needs. We are all experts in our personal requirements.
Every device is a bunch of compromises. Size battery life, CPU power, GPU power. Open-ness and so on all influence each other. You can't have one thing without reducing another.
So you design a device, and take a bunch of hard engineering decisions and hard design decisions. And the market let's you know your score out of ten.
Palm has made some interesting choices. To basically ship a device with a cool web browser - and then deliver all functionality through web-apps which run under that browser. It is a brilliant idea. But it's a compromise. We will see how well it works out.
Apple made a ton of decisions that are utterly different to the decisions of Nokia, Microsoft and Palm. The mobile space was well established before Apple appeared, and the standard way of doing things was nailed-down. Apple took a lot of decisions which went at 90 degrees to the received wisdom.
Apple said, in the clearest possible way, we don't agree X is important, we think Y is much more important. Clearly that upset some folks. Especially those who are invested in X.
Are these good design decision or bad design decisions?
Depends on the user.
But whatever Apple did right or wrong. It did not harm the sales of the device. Consumers don't run out of the Apple Store screaming, "This is bullshit, this thing does not multi-task". Instead the iPhone sells pretty good numbers. So well in fact that other companies feel the need to produce more iPhone-like devices.
And looking at the web market share, iPhone users go off and start using it as a mobile internet device, in a way that none of its predecessors ever got used.
Sure, iPhone is a bag of compromises. Just like the Pre, or WinMo or Symbian is.
But to make out that the iPhone is full of artificial shortcomings and dumb compromises and that consumers are blinded by the glowing white logo, is just plain rude.
WinMo has had cut and paste forever. Anyone want a WinMo phone?
C.
I actually must say this is the first response I've gotten that I respect.
I actually must say this is the first response I've gotten that I respect.
Sounds like your ideal device would be a more conventional smartphone with a media player.
Which is perfectly fine.
Me personally, I have never had the urge to edit a document on my phone. I got a netbook for that stuff.
And although I am pleased to finally to have cut-and-paste. I have to admit that after two weeks - I have only found use for it on one occasion.
C.
Excellent. And because its always running, being part of Phone, the presence portion of the Skype stack is running and would be able to determine whether or not it has Wi-Fi and change your Skype status. You might wish it to show you as Busy, or perhaps another status that shows you available for Chat only. Better yet, when you clicked Dial inside Phone, the existing "Call" icon would remain lit, but the menu that appears when you held the button down would have the "Skype to Skype" and "SkypeOut" options dimmed out with a little icon that says "needs Wi-Fi". As soon as you entered a Wi-Fi area and connected, Skype's status would update to allow people to call you on Skype directly, as well as making the buttons inside Phone work so I could just use SkypeOut from the Call button. Best of all, there would be a preference that allowed me to say that if I am connected to Wi-Fi, or a particular set of Wi-Fi's, that all outbound Calls should default to Skype.
So now your iPhone allows people to get to you in a myriad of new low-cost paths, without you having to learn anything at all. Everything you know about making a phone call using Phone continues to work perfectly. And we could also have plugins for GChat, iChat, MSN, SIP and WMA. The carriers would LOVE to have WMA on the iPhone. And all of this would work without need for background apps, save those that already exists.
I don't see the point to all this.
When you come into the range of a USABLE WiFi network, not something that common even in the middle of NYC, your phone can tell you. You can choose to join or not. Skype is only useful when IN that network. I don't see its usefulness for the 99% time it isn't.
I have no idea what your point is here. What does this have to do with it plugging into the iPod app on my iPhone?
Maury
Just as I have no idea what your point is for it to use the iPod program.