Iphone

[archie]

See, besides the Zirconia body thing you mentioned (which while nice, companies attempting to improve reception is also not a new advancement, they just have yet-another-method)

Yeh, THEIR method is to wait around for some manufacturer like Broadcom to design a better chip and then wait a little longer for it to drop in price then incorporate it into their phone.

Apple goes beyond this and improves upon current technologies by adding their own engineering expertise.

you're just jumping back into the UI features while I was discussing hardware and Apple's supposed amazing engineering which you proclaimed.

No I wasn't. The Visual Expansion technology is reliant on the touch screen being time sensitive. You see, it is capable of not just registering a touch but how long that touch is there for... AND, yet to be revealed in any capacity, is its ability to also sense pressure.

As has been said by me and others, Apple's UI will probably be very good. No argument there (though I still fail to see the need for a full-desktop OS in a cell phone that takes a 1/2 gb of space).

Well, if you want smartphone capabilities done right, you have to have an OS that will support it.

But as far as hardware it's very basic. Yes, they added some sensors but if they were going to do a full touchscreen phone, it was a good thing they improved up the old model.

BASIC???

You call this hardware BASIC??? Son, you need to get off your high-horse.

 

[oalvarez]

The Treo 600 drove everyone NUTS with its non-swappable battery.

wow...it either has been that long since i owned a Treo 600 or i simply wasn't bothered by it. i honestly can't remember a battery issue with the 600.

oh well

 

[archie]

Now I know!!! It was to make money!!! yes, thats the reason. It was eluding me all along. What was I thinking? Isn't that where you sell as many units as possible with the biggest profit margin possible, and laugh all the way to the bank? Yes, that sounds just like the Apple modus operandi, doesn't it?

Surur

Yes it does. Now, do you know how they will be able to make money?

By selling this iPhone like crazy because eeverybody complains about how bad their current phone sucks. They see an opportunity (the opportunity is there because nobody else has been able to, or been pushed to, fix the problem) and they take it.

That is what Apple has always done. They take existing poorly implented technologies and improve on them.

 

[oalvarez]

es. Sign me up...

I've had two Treo 600s, three Treo 650s (still have one of each), I'm on my second 8125 (need to replace it due to a few intolerable glitches) - I have NEVER ONCE had to replace my battery or carry a spare.

well, that makes two of us.

 

[oalvarez]

I have a hard time believing that I will be able to watch video's, listen to music, surf the web, read and send emails, and make phone calls ALL DAY in one charge cycle every day. Of course there are days that I hardly use my phone, but there are also plenty of days where I use it a lot.

don't so many around here claim to be able to do this on their Treos?

 

[oalvarez]

How about Apple work on upping the specs of the device, e.g. a flash, auto-focus camera, GPS, 3G, you know, the things that matter to people who spend $600 on a phone. I notice this device, which is smaller and only 4mm thicker, has all this and a higher resolution screen, removable storage and removable battery to boot.

http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/handhelds/0,39001703,40261740p,00.htm?

Surur

1) many of those who spend $600 on a phone don't really care about a flash, auto-focus camera, gps, 3g....why? they have real cameras at home, more useful gps systems in their fancy automobiles, and broadband internet on their PC's. that's my take.

2) i think that phone looks like doo-doo, and it is 4mm thicker (in % terms that's a lot). again, just my thoughts.

regards

 

[oalvarez]

You would think the "miracle workers" in Apples' engineering department could figure out a way to include a removable battery without "losing a greater overall percentage of its mass," wouldn't you? Even the mediocre engineers at Motorola figured that part out. Moore's Law would lead most people to believe Apple's design is at best evolutionary (given the 2 years newer status it has over the Moto Q design or the 6 year advantage over the seemingly unchanging Treo design) - if not a step backwards. Where's the GPS? Where's the removable storage? Were they even trying to be anything more than "pretty?"

didn't the MOTO Q come with two batteries or was that just the Blackjack?

 

[surur]

1) many of those who spend $600 on a phone don't really care about a flash, auto-focus camera, gps, 3g....why? they have real cameras at home, more useful gps systems in their fancy automobiles, and broadband internet on their PC's. that's my take.

2) i think that phone looks like doo-doo, and it is 4mm thicker (in % terms that's a lot). again, just my thoughts.

regards

OK, features like that only probably matter to me. It may be 40% thicker, but it has 5 times the useful, usable features. GPS is useful, 3G with tethering is very useful, especially to the business traveler. These are things that are getting to be almost basic, and tragically missing from the IPhone. Even the very consumer Helio Ocean has 3G and GPS. Most of HTC's high-end devices have GPS, as does Eten, as does Nokia. The IPhone is tragically behind in the feature race.

Surur

 

[oalvarez]

gps is useful, especially on a larger screen embedded in the dashboard so not to have to fumble around a handheld device, while driving. yes, gps is quite useful. i'd agree with that!

 

[surur]

GPS is no less useful for being on a 3.5 or 2.8 inch screen, and consumer acceptance is high for those sizes. Young people who change (cheap) cars a lot prefer portable systems to built-in systems, and find them much more affordable - win-win.

Surur

 

[Malatesta]

didn't the MOTO Q come with two batteries or was that just the Blackjack?

Blackjack.

 

[Malatesta]

Yeh, THEIR method is to wait around for some manufacturer like Broadcom to design a better chip and then wait a little longer for it to drop in price then incorporate it into their phone.

Well, if you want smartphone capabilities done right, you have to have an OS that will support it.

BASIC???

You call this hardware BASIC??? Son, you need to get off your high-horse.

I hardly think that the engineers for other cell phones just care about the chips to get better reception without considering design or ways to improve things. Just because you know what Apple uses and not what HTC or Motorola do to address reception is no reason to write them off.

Re: the need for a 1/2gb desktop OS in a handheld you are still failing to provide any explanation outside of conjecture. Why is a full desktop OS needed in a cell phone? What is it that the iPhone can do that other smarthphones cannot with a 35mb OS? Granted, the iPhone OS will be developed upon for years but what exactly is the need for that much OS? It's a cellphone, not a UMPC.

I call that hardware the least Apple could do if they are serious about entering this market. The Helio Ocean has more useful technology than the iPhone (3g, expandable memory, GPS, flash for the camera, supports all IM services, USB mass storage support, mac and PC compatible, etc) and is half the price, plus no contract.

I guess I'm not wowed by bells and whistles and instead actually care about what I can do with the device. Simply making calls, surfing at 2g speeds, playing music and video is not exactly amazing features on a converged device anymore. Tilt sensors and fancy touchscreens are a neat novelty but don't make up for the lack of internal GPS, IM support, 3g speeds.

Also, please stop being condescending with the "son" bit. I'm just not impressed with what I know about the iPhone for the price of the phone and the service. It's a ripoff, too little too late. It won't matter though b/c the iPhone will eclipse something like the Helio Ocean which has more useful features, is cheaper to buy and cheaper to operate.

 

[marcol]

... e.g. a flash, auto-focus camera, GPS, 3G, you know, the things that matter to people who spend $600 on a phone. I notice this device, which is smaller and only 4mm thicker, has all this and a higher resolution screen, removable storage and removable battery to boot.

Slightly OT

Surur, do you know of any 3G WM phones with a SiRF III GPS chip? The link you posted says the glofiish might but I know the (3G) HTC P3600 doesn't have one (while the non-3G P3300 does). The 3G GPS Nokias don't have SiRF III either and the Eten and Mios I've seen have SiRF III but no 3G. Compatibility issues?

 

[marcol]

Re: the need for a 1/2gb desktop OS in a handheld you are still failing to provide any explanation outside of conjecture. Why is a full desktop OS needed in a cell phone? What is it that the iPhone can do that other smarthphones cannot with a 35mb OS? Granted, the iPhone OS will be developed upon for years but what exactly is the need for that much OS? It's a cellphone, not a UMPC.

That's a question I'd love to hear people with more expertise than me discuss. iPhone OS X is probably at least 10x the size of WM5: >300 MB vs ~32 MB:

iPhone: http://www.macworld.co.uk/ipod-itunes/news/index.cfm?newsid=16927

WM5: http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/08/19/453784.aspx

The graphical abilities of the iPhone OS (screen transitions, scrolling, web page and map zooming, coverflow, etc) look great but are these enough to explain the size? Does multi-touch have an impact? The browser and video looked very sweet in the keynote, perhaps it's just the case that the extra bit of quality requires a much bigger app?

 

[surur]

Slightly OT

Surur, do you know of any 3G WM phones with a SiRF III GPS chip? The link you posted says the glofiish might but I know the (3G) HTC P3600 doesn't have one (while the non-3G P3300 does). The 3G GPS Nokias don't have SiRF III either and the Eten and Mios I've seen have SiRF III but no 3G. Compatibility issues?

Thats because the Qualcomm HSDPA chipset already includes the GPS functionality, so it would be an easily avoidable extra cost. Having said that, the above Eten x800 actually does have a SIRFIII chipset, according to many sources.
http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=specs&id=745

That's a question I'd love to hear people with more expertise than me discuss. iPhone OS X is probably at least 10x the size of WM5: >300 MB vs ~32 MB:

iPhone: http://www.macworld.co.uk/ipod-itunes/news/index.cfm?newsid=16927

WM5: http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/08/19/453784.aspx

The graphical abilities of the iPhone OS (screen transitions, scrolling, web page and map zooming, coverflow, etc) look great but are these enough to explain the size? Does multi-touch have an impact? The browser and video looked very sweet in the keynote, perhaps it's just the case that the extra bit of quality requires a much bigger app?

Ive thought a bit about this, and there are a few possible explanations.

1) It really is a cut down OSX, but that was as slim as they can make the OS, due to dependencies.

2) They want to provide a very rich API, and will be using Execute in Place to avoid the memory strain this would cause.

No. 1 is obviously not a big issue, due to the massive storage available on the device, but says interesting things about the modularity of OSX.

No. 2 is also interesting, as providing a very large and accurate version of the desktop API should help porting to no end.

Anyway, we shall see I guess once people rip apart this device. Judging by how easily Apple TV got cracked, I have very little faith in Apple keeping the IPhone a closed system, especially when the provide such a large API to attack the system.

Surur

 

[marcol]

Thats because the Qualcomm HSDPA chipset already includes the GPS functionality, so it would be an easily avoidable extra cost. Having said that, the above Eten x800 actually does have a SIRFIII chipset, according to many sources.
http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=specs&id=745

That's good. The Qualcomm chip doesn't seem too great at GPS:

"The Qualcomm based HTC P3600 is clearly not on par with the SiRFstarIII based PDAPhones with irregular and inaccurate tracks that would likely make it difficult for navigation software to provide accurate guidance."

http://www.gpspassion.com/fr/articles.asp?id=175&page=6

 

[marcol]

Ive thought a bit about this, and there are a few possible explanations.

1) It really is a cut down OSX, but that was as slim as they can make the OS, due to dependencies.

2) They want to provide a very rich API, and will be using Execute in Place to avoid the memory strain this would cause.

No. 1 is obviously not a big issue, due to the massive storage available on the device, but says interesting things about the modularity of OSX.

No. 2 is also interesting, as providing a very large and accurate version of the desktop API should help porting to no end.

Thanks. It was notable in the keynote that the iTunes screen shot showed the capacity to be '8 GB'. I have an '8 GB' nano and iTunes reports capacity as '7.5 GB'. With the nano I put this down to binary vs decimal counting and the OS either being stored in flash and/or using some space for execution. Do you think the screen shot (provided it wasn't faked, which I suppose is fairly likely) suggests xip or might there just be more execution RAM (beyond the 8 GB)?

EDIT. For those (like me) with limited technical knowledge of xip and the like, this might be helpful:

http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/08/19/453784.aspx

 

[surur]

The people who own the device report slower lock times, but pretty usable devices.

Surur

 

[surur]

Thanks. It was notable in the keynote that the iTunes screen shot showed the capacity to be '8 GB'. I have an '8 GB' nano and iTunes reports capacity as '7.5 GB'. With the nano I put this down to binary vs decimal counting and the OS either being stored in flash and/or using some space for execution. Do you think the screen shot (provided it wasn't faked, which I suppose is fairly likely) suggests xip or might there just be more execution RAM (beyond the 8 GB)?

I'll wait for Archie to corroborate, but most people seem to interpret it as 8 GB minus 500 GB for the OS, leaving 7.5 or 3.5 GB.

Surur

 

[marcol]

For info, here's the pic showing iTunes reporting '8.0 GB' capacity

http://www.myiphone.com/iphone-hidden-details-from-jobs-keynote-23454.php