IPhone, the Final Treo Killer

[marcol]

Regarding full scale browser, what does that exactly mean. We dont know how much of the web the IPhone browser supports. The Safari browser currently also runs on the Nokia Symbian phones, and are also said to be rather good.

By me amongst others. Nokia's S60 browser ('Web') is much the best I've used on a mobile device. The others I've used make reading full-sized pages almost intolerable. For me at least, Web is light years ahead of either Blazer or PIE.

Does safari even have a single column mode so you dont have to fiddle with the page all the time, or is that too retro for Jobs?

The S60 browser doesn't have single column mode and doesn't need it. Ninety nine times out of a hundred it fits the text part of the page to the screen, formatting it (on an E61) to a bit less 320 pixels wide.

If Safari on the iPhone is as good as its Webkit cousin, that would be good enough for me. To put it another way: If Safari is as good as Web then there will be too decent, bundled browsers in the world.

 

[surur]

I was talking about simultaneous voice and data. You do of course know this does not work over GPRS and EDGE, but only UMTS and EVDO Rev A.

About the browser, was Jobs lying or not then. Do you feel you have a full-scale web browser or not.

Re the screen rotation - yes, a sensor is nice, but is it something anyone should really be bragging about? I don't see Hermes users going on and on about the automatic screen rotation. Its almost a given.

Surur

 

[marcol]

I was talking about simultaneous voice and data.

Thanks for clarifying.

You do of course know this does not work over GPRS and EDGE, but only UMTS and EVDO Rev A.

Of course. If I'm outside of 3G coverage my E61 tells me 'Data packet access active' at the end of every call

About the browser, was Jobs lying or not then. Do you feel you have a full-scale web browser or not.

Firstly, I don't have an iPhone so I can't really make a judgement on anything Steve Jobs said about its browser. As to whether I'd call Nokia's Web a 'full-scale browser', I must say it's not something I've really considered. It would be easy to hung up the semantics - one man's 'full-scale browser' probably isn't another's. I will say it's the best browser I've used on a phone or PDA.

Re the screen rotation - yes, a sensor is nice, but is it something anyone should really be bragging about? I don't see Hermes users going on and on about the automatic screen rotation. Its almost a given.

I agree, but a bit of good healthy excitement isn't such a bad thing

 

[TazUk]

SO you just need one phone to ship with picsel browser and Jobs would be a liar?

A phone running the Picsel Browser has already been released, by Samsung I believe. It was from that the the hacked version people have got running on their Treo's came from It's a much nicer browser that Blazer, no big surprise there, but suffers from stability issues as it was never intended to run on a Treo 650

 

[Malatesta]

A phone running the Picsel Browser has already been released, by Samsung I believe. It was from that the the hacked version people have got running on their Treo's came from It's a much nicer browser that Blazer, no big surprise there, but suffers from stability issues as it was never intended to run on a Treo 650

This is true, the Picsel browser was a full browser in every sense (well, it didn't do Youtube though) and to browse you did this slide/scroll thing much like how the iPhone scrolls.

At ppcgeeks it was available for all WM5 devices and was quite amazing software but Picsel made us take it down.

 

[TazUk]

What I don't understand is why they never made it available for sale as they did their viewer

 

[samkim]

One Huge Difference: PDA owners can write their own custom applications with ease free of charge and not be at the mercy of, or waiting on some 3rd party developers to do it.

Nope. iPhone owners CANNOT write their own custom applications. And according to Jobs, they likely never will. If Apple ever lets third-party developers create apps, it will be controlled by Apple.

I still see no difference between widgets on the iPhone and apps on other phones.

5) Ability to browse internet while talking on the phone (really important to me on a personal level) Don't need This would be a power user's feature.

Right. You're so cool.

6) Better volume on calls Never had a problem with volume on my Treo 650 Because the iPhone is also an iPod - much attention has been given to sound quality output. Any phone call would have available to it the sound quality optimizing abilities of the iPod.

When you say stuff like this, it's called "hype."

7) Ability to sync a Macintosh or PC iTunes, Address book and files Don't need to sync iTunes; already can sync Outlook and DocsToGo Forgone conclusion, you don't need an iPod, so you'd never sync iTunes. We're all syncing Outlook and DocsToGo.

Then why cite address book syncing as a reason to dump your Treo??

 

[samkim]

Innovation #4 - iPhone is first cell device in history to introduce multi-touch on a touchscreen aka "point and pinch touchscreen."

Not the first. Maybe the second.
http://www.slashgear.com/fic-linux-...on-of-the-open-source-community-072392.php/1/

 

[vinman]

Not the first. Maybe the second.
http://www.slashgear.com/fic-linux-...on-of-the-open-source-community-072392.php/1/

It appears that device report was posted in early November, '06. I can't find any other info about it. It looks like a promising device; anybody have any release, carrier, viability information? I'd consider one of those if it doesn't turn out to be vaporware...

 

[specimen38]

Not the first. Maybe the second.
http://www.slashgear.com/fic-linux-...on-of-the-open-source-community-072392.php/1/

Samkin, I stand corrected! Apple said they had patents (over 200 on touch technologies) and I went with it. It appears Apple is the second company. Unless, of course they licensed it to someone in the open source community, which I doubt very seriously.

EDIT: I do not stand corrected!

Sounds like we still don't know for sure about the multi-touch patent. We must be care before we commit so called facts. Apple or someone else? Perhaps a dead-heat? Perhaps we can re-categorize it's introduction as an innovation again -- brought to market.

Nope. These are just applications:
Neo: iPhone GUI
Neo: proximity detector

I haven't tried Google for patents yet either.

 

[specimen38]

Nope. iPhone owners CANNOT write their own custom applications. And according to Jobs, they likely never will. If Apple ever lets third-party developers create apps, it will be controlled by Apple.
Where did you get that from? Give me a link to that? Macintosh users are able to write custom widgets now for Mac computers. What would be different?


I still see no difference between widgets on the iPhone and apps on other phones. If you can write your own apps then there will be a big difference. I can't even see what would preclude an iPhone owner from installing a widget via USB into the OSX apps folder and using the widget. Give something definitive that says Apple has LOCKED out widget development by individuals from the iPhone.

Right. You're so cool. Yeah!

When you say stuff like this, it's called "hype."

Then why cite address book syncing as a reason to dump your Treo??

I'm a middleware developer/.Net FW 2.0 during the day. I dont like synching to Outlook. But I go home to a Mac in the evening and there is no easy way to Sync my address book app with out 3rd party stuff.

 

[specimen38]

Off topic for a moment:

Does anybody remember SeldomVisitor?

Is he back under another name?

 

[samkim]

Where did you get that from? Give me a link to that? Macintosh users are able to write custom widgets now for Mac computers. What would be different?

Steve Jobs, quoted in the New York Times:
“We define everything that is on the phone,” he said. “You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work anymore. These are more like iPods than they are like computers.”

The iPhone, he insisted, would not look like the rest of the wireless industry.

“These are devices that need to work, and you can’t do that if you load any software on them,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there’s not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn’t mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/11/technology/11cnd-apple.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

 

[marcol]

Not the first. Maybe the second.
http://www.slashgear.com/fic-linux-...on-of-the-open-source-community-072392.php/1/

Wow! There sure are some similarities there! There's a bit more info here:

http://www.openmoko.com/

Preliminary Specification

Note: These are _not_ final. But since we've had so many questions on our mailing lists,
it's probably best to post them in one place:

Hardware

120.7 x 62 x 18.5 (mm)
2.8" VGA (480x640) TFT Screen
Samsung s3c2410 SoC
Global Locate AGPS chip
Ti GPRS (2.5G not EDGE)
Unpowered USB 1.1
Touchscreen
micro-sd slot
2.5mm audio jack
2 buttons
1200 mAh battery (charged over USB)
128 MB SDRAM
64 MB NAND Flash
Software

Dialer
Contacts
Application Manager
Calendar
More...
​

This gives you flavour of where they're at and where they want go (pdf):

http://www.openmoko.com/files/OpenMoko_Amsterdam.pdf

 

[specimen38]

Samkin, you're right again! To be sure, this strategy has not limited the success of the iPod, which has become the defining hand-held consumer appliance and fashion statement in the last half-decade.

It's in black and white, but I can't imagine Jobs could be that dumb.

Steve Jobs, quoted in the New York Times:
“We define everything that is on the phone,” he said. “You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work anymore. These are more like iPods than they are like computers.”

The iPhone, he insisted, would not look like the rest of the wireless industry.

“These are devices that need to work, and you can’t do that if you load any software on them,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there’s not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn’t mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/11/technology/11cnd-apple.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

 

[specimen38]

Not the first. Maybe the second.
http://www.slashgear.com/fic-linux-...on-of-the-open-source-community-072392.php/1/

Samkin, I stand corrected! Apple said they had patents (over 200 on touch technologies) and I went with it. It appears Apple is the second company. Unless, of course they licensed it to someone in the open source community, which I doubt very seriously.

EDIT: I do not stand corrected!

Sounds like we still don't know for sure about the multi-touch patent. We must be careful before we commit so called facts. Apple or someone else? Perhaps a dead-heat? Perhaps we can re-categorize it's introduction as an innovation again -- brought to market.

Nope. These are just applications:
Neo: iPhone GUI
Neo: proximity detector

I haven't tried Google for patents yet either.

 

[whmurray]

Samkin, you're right again! To be sure, this strategy has not limited the success of the iPod, which has become the defining hand-held consumer appliance and fashion statement in the last half-decade.

It's in black and white, but I can't imagine Jobs could be that dumb.

Watch this space for the hack.

 

[specimen38]

LOL! Maybe Shadowmite...

Watch this space for the hack.

 

[whmurray]

LOL! Maybe Shadowmite...

May well be.