Comments on: Apple Announces the iPhone
Today at the MacWorld Conferecnce in San Fransico, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced a new Apple iPhone mobile phone. The iPhone includes a 3.5" inch touchscreen wisdescreen display, with new mulit-touch support. It includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0, a 2 megapixel camera and either 4GB or 8GB of storage. It is also one of the slimmest smartphones, with dimensions of 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches (115 x 61 x 11.6mm) weighing in at 4.8 ounces (135g).
Details are still coming in but it will apparently run a version of OS X and uses a quadband GSM radio with EDGE. It includes iPod and iTunes syncing software, a Video player, html and push email support, safari web browser, google maps and other new features such as visual voicemail.
The Apple iPhone is expected to become available from Apple and Cingular in June for $499 for the 4GB and $599 for the 8GB version.
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RE: iPhone!
On another note, I wish I could say that I'd like to have seen Ed Colligan's face when the news hit, but deep down I know he's not surprised. Why should he be? Unlike Palm, Apple has built a reputation on not pulling punches on hardware and features, so who would expect any less? Nope he knew it was coming, and he doesn't give a damn, because he's a millionare no matter what happens to Palm.
I think Palm can kiss it's consumer market goodbye, which means PalmOS. There still may be hope for phones like the 750. Speaking of which, it's completely telling and absolutely pitiful to compare the launch of the 750 vs. the iPhone.
I'd like to be optimistic and hope that Palm will make a PalmOS Treo to rival the iPhone, but I honestly don't think anymore that they have the motivation or the capability. It could have been them on top, if they'd only had the balls to try to pull it off...
Peace Out
Alan
RE: iPhone!
Job's first goal is 1% of the cell phone market. There is still lots of room for Palm phones. I would love to have an iPhone but there are a number of reasons I might go with a Treo instead. (Cingular's contract might be more than I would want to handle, lack of network in some rural areas, total cost of owning.) I want to share your optimism and hope Palm will improve its products and expand its markets.
What now Colligan?
Stunning!
I'm STILL slackjawed at the iPhone...it's much, much more than I expected it to be (I was expecting another ROKR rehash).
Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P
I'm not doing well with tags lately...
Still, before we all go "Boy, dat feeture list sure is tootin' long" let's all pause and think:
1) It's thin yet has a huge widescreen screen, a sh*tload of internal storage, a desktop OS and wi-fi. Put these together with the iPod's notorious battery life woes. Gulp.
2) MESSAGING!!!!! For the generation that has grown up using mobile phones (myself included), especially in Asian and European countries, SMS is arguably far more important than making calls. How exactly do you type out a quick SMS or email on this? Answer: with great difficulty if you have to do it all via an on-screen virtual keyboard. Quoth Jobs:
"I can have multiple SMS conversations. Here's the conversation I've been carrying on [shows QWERTY keyboard on screen]. I've got this little keyboard that prevents error, it's really fast to type on, faster than the little plastic keyboards on all those smartphones."
Bullshit!! Predictive text is insanely annoying and part of the reason I bought a Treo with a real keyboard in the first place.
3) The same goes for URLs on the internet. Are Apple seriously expecting people to touch-tap long and complicated URLs? Puh-lease. Emails? Ha!
4)Quoth Jobs:
Favorites, last century [shows dialer], calendar, SMS texting, incredible photo app, the ability to take any picture and make it your wallpaper. I think you'll agree... we've reinvented the phone."
No, Steve, the Treo already offers ALL those things. Can't wait for the media reports that repeat his meme over, and over.....
That said: the web browser, camera and wi-fi all look awesome.
I'm also never going to buy one. It forces you to sync your contacts with iTunes. Ugh.
Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650 ---> Crimson Treo 680
RE: Stunning!
Palm m125 > Palm Zire 71 > Tapwave Zodiac 1 > Palm Zire 72 > Sharp Zaurus SL-C1000 + 4gb MicroDrive + Palm Tungsten T|3 (1100mah)
My T|3 is too [i]sexy[/i] for me.
RE: Stunning!
The internal storage is solid state (flash), meaning that no battery power is needed to either keep data, or spin a physical disk, to the battery is only an issue when reading/writing, just as with any other phone. So that is mitigated. Also, you can bet the the OS is an embedded version, also decreasing the hit on the battery, though not completely. Still, this leaves only the screen as a major battery drain, and it's not even VGA. I think it will do pretty well. The question is, is the battery removable/user replaceable. Also, with only 4-8GB onboard, this is not yet an iPod replacement. It would have been nice to see a card slot somewhere on this bad boy, but that is a minor gripe, really, and may have increased the thickness of the device, which physically is quite stunning. Let's hope it's performance is equally so.
_________________
Sean
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
RE: Stunning!
My impressions:
It seemed huge compared to the Treo. And too thin. Easy to drop (and Apple has a reputation for building things that like to scratch easily).
Nice bright color landscape screen. No physical keyboard. It would take a miracle for me to type qwerty on a software-only keyboard - they absolutely suck. I can type one-handed on the Treo without even looking at the device - hard to touch-type on a flat piece of glass...
No backup SD slot. Brilliant, Apple. Welcome to Palm's world circa 1999. Maybe people "phone in" their backups?
$600.00 AND a 2-year contract for an 8GB Ipod ($239.00) tied to a phone? And STILL no FM radio. That implementation of OSX had better give regular backrubs at that price.
They will probably sell quite a few of these to Apple/Ipod fetishists with money to burn, but it's no Newton or Palm.
What's most amazing to me about the iPhone is it clearly illustrates how much better the Treo COULD have been by now if Palm hadn't just sat on their laurels the past few years. They've milked the design Handspring gave them years ago as far as they could, made a deal with the Redmond devil and kludged in WinceMob. But Apple has come out of nowhere and made a very interesting multimedia phone out of an MP3 player. If Palm had put it's "LifeDrive" energy into improving the Treo's multimedia instead, they wouldn't be off-loading the Lifedrives as Apple releases a Phone that blows the Lifedrive away AND is a phone. And they did it with FLASH and not a ridiculous Microdrive.
RE: Stunning!
Word, brother.
Battery life might be iffy.
Five hours of full usage seems like it is not enough for use as a PDA. I would want at least 8.
Still, it looks very sexy. As a smartphone it could be a real Treo killer.
"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."
RE: Battery life might be iffy.
It'll also use a single charger connector (standard iPod design).
More tidbits from Engadget & Macworld:
"On one side, the iPhone sports a ring/silent switch, volume up and down controls. On its silver back side is a 2 megapixel digital camera. The bottom features a speaker, microphone and iPod dock connector.
The iPhone also incorporates a proximity sensor that automatically deactivates the screen and turns off the touch sensor when you raise the device to your face. An ambient light sensor will sense lighting conditions and adjust brightness levels accordingly. And an accelerometer can tell when you switch from portrait to landscape mode"
"It also integrates Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity, and will automatically switch from a cell phone data network to Wi-Fi when it gets in range. "
Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P
RE: Battery life might be iffy.
wow. could you ever dream of seeing such innovation and technology on a treo?
RE: Battery life might be iffy.
RE: Battery life might be iffy.
RE: Battery life might be iffy.
RE: iPhone Demo's on Apple's site
2 batteries, EDGE/wi-fi/BT 2.0/2mp camera/8gb flash in a device that sleek ...and here I sit looking at my antenna-sportin' 700p lagging away with its Seidio "RumpShaker" battery attached and just shake my head...
Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P
RE: iPhone Demo's on Apple's site
Gosh this thing is pretty though...
RE: iPhone Demo's on Apple's site
RE: iPhone Demo's on Apple's site
Pat Horne
RE: iPhone Demo's on Apple's site
OK, walk me through this. How could you possibly have a web browser that's less capable than Blazer?
Wait! I forgot AvantGo. My bad.
If you think the iPhone's browser is worse than that, you must have been watching a different demo than I was.
RE: iPhone Demo's on Apple's site
I would really, really love to see the conversation where you float that idea to Steve Jobs.
The Newton was not Jobs' idea. It was the idea of the person who fired Jobs, John Sculley. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton Educate thyself.
Arguably, the Newton is dead today because of Jobs' vendetta against Sculley. Frankly, I think that has been his biggest misstep since returning to Apple.
Palmato started a thread already.
Palm m125 > Palm Zire 71 > Tapwave Zodiac 1 > Palm Zire 72 > Sharp Zaurus SL-C1000 + 4gb MicroDrive + Palm Tungsten T|3 (1100mah)
My T|3 is too [i]sexy[/i] for me.
Fly your stylus at half-mast to honor the dead
So long fellas, it won't be the same without you around producing mediocre hardware.
-------------------------------
PocketFactory, www.pocketfactory.com
Elitist Snob, www.elitistsnob.com
RE: Fly your stylus at half-mast to honor the dead
RE: Fly your stylus at half-mast to honor the dead
Yes, Palm will have the Treo 683. It will ship with Palm OS 5.4.9.99.999.999999, 65MB non-volatile flash memory (32MB user accessible), 200k program execution memory, and...
an antenna nub.
RE: Fly your stylus at half-mast to honor the dead
Don't be stupid. This thing is $600 with a 2 year contract at launch. Get your economics straight. I'm pretty sure that those companies will have something up their sleeves once iPhone debuts in June. That 2 Megapixel Camera will look pathetic once that time comes.
Uh...not quite, Steimie. The entry level model is $499 with contract, which puts it on par with other smartphone devices in this class, or near as anything else can approach. And unless "those companies" can magically pull a full blown Unix platform running desktop class applications out their hats within the next few months, I don't see how anything will touch the iPhone upon launch. PalmOS, Windows Mobile, and Symbian are outclassed by OSX under the hood.
Palm should seek a buyer while their shares still hold value. With Garnet and Windows Mobile as their only Ace, they are holding a losing hand.
-------------------------------
PocketFactory, www.pocketfactory.com
Elitist Snob, www.elitistsnob.com
RE: Fly your stylus at half-mast to honor the dead
It's an impressive announcement and Steve is a great salesman. When these devices are in people's hands and they're still convinced, maybe then it's time to start writing obituaries. Until then, all we have to go on is hype.
Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650 ---> Crimson Treo 680
RE: Fly your stylus at half-mast to honor the dead
Will Palm come up with a treo that does all this by dec 07. Probably not, so paying $499 for a dvice that does all this looks good to me than a device that does half of this for $199.
Just my opinion from a former Palm user.
___________________________________
Casio B.O.S.S --> M100 --> Vx --> M505 --> T3 -->?
Yankees, Steinbrenner,...... I will never turn to the dark side.
RE: Fly your stylus at half-mast to honor the dead
So long fellas, it won't be the same without you around producing mediocre hardware.<<<
A $500 or $600 smartphone that is not even 3G capable. Give me a break. This phone has some nice features but this is certainly not the smartphone that will end all smartphones.
RE: Fly your stylus at half-mast to honor the dead
Palm m125 > Palm Zire 71 > Tapwave Zodiac 1 > Palm Zire 72 > Sharp Zaurus SL-C1000 + 4gb MicroDrive + Palm Tungsten T|3 (1100mah)
My T|3 is too [i]sexy[/i] for me.
RE: Fly your stylus at half-mast to honor the dead
Furthermore, the more you create a Swiss Army gadget, the LESS the features are operational. You'll get fifteen gadgets but at half their functionality potential--I'm sticking to carrying my iPod, my T|X and my Cingular ROKR--I may have three pounds of equipment but, they'll be the complete devices they were meant to be!!!
Sharp Wizard 6500> Palm m500> m515> Tungsten T> Zire 71> T|E> T|X
RE: Fly your stylus at half-mast to honor the dead
Who this is going to hurt in a big way; Palm, RIM, Nokia, Motorola, Microsoft (anyone still want to buy a Zune or a Windows Smartphone?).
Apple has signed a multiyear exclusive deal with Cingular. I certainly wouldn't want to own Verizon, T-Mobile or Sprint stock right now.
Here's hoping manufacturers step up to the plate and start building products I would want to buy again. The Palm 680, last year's 650 without the stubby antenna! Wake up call boys and girls. I'm tired of evolutionary products, lets see your revolutionary ones. I think for Palm it is already far, far too late.
Best, James Scherber
RE: Fly your stylus at half-mast to honor the dead
True, the AT&T monster we chopped up over 20 years ago has nearly completely returned, spouting additional tentacles into cellular and broadband duopolies that should make any American Citizen shudder about the future of their Republic. It's a bad, bad sign.
But a phone that plays MP3's and does a few things the Treo does (with a bigger screen but without a realistic keyboard or even a backup slot) isn't going to make *ME* give up EVDO and reasonable rates and great coverage on Sprint. And Verizon seems to have fanboys that nearly claim to have travelled to the earth's core without dropping a call - doubt they'd drop their beloved carrier in exchange for a scratchable MP3 player with a beautiful screen and no keyboard.
lifedrive part two?
RE: lifedrive part two?
Palm m125 > Palm Zire 71 > Tapwave Zodiac 1 > Palm Zire 72 > Sharp Zaurus SL-C1000 + 4gb MicroDrive + Palm Tungsten T|3 (1100mah)
My T|3 is too [i]sexy[/i] for me.
RE: lifedrive part two?
This is what the LifeDrive was supposed to be...
Though times for the Treo, which design looks primitive and ancient in comparison. I am not Apple fanboy, but this looks really ages ahead.
Palm, where are you?
RE: This is what the LifeDrive was supposed to be...
-P-A-T-C-H-W-O-R-K-
A Trini Palm Nut
III - IIIe - IIIx - M500 - T|T - ??
Come visit Trinidad & Tobago at
http://www.visittnt.com
http://www.triniscene.com
RE: Wake-up Call
So....Wi-fi and a Big Screen are dumb ideas for a Smartphone huh..???
This can not be pointed out too often! Come on Palm!
I'm still waiting for the mythical color HandEra.
Thinking about Vista? Think again: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
PC guys cant make a phone
Palm spent years making the Treo.
The PC guys can't just come along an make a phone.
Just ask Colligan.
Friendly reminder - don't be smug
Colligan Laughs Off iPhone Competition
Posted By: Ryan on Monday, November 20, 2006 1:29:45 PM
http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9110/colligan-laughs-off-iphone-competition/
RE: PC guys cant make a phone
"Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose." - Bill Gates
"Death can come swiftly to a market leader. By the time you have lost the positive-feedback cycle it's often too late to change what you've been doing, and all of the elements of a negative spiral come into play." - Bill Gates, "The Road Ahead", Chapter 3
"In this business, by the time you realize you're in trouble, it's too late to save yourself. Unless you're running scared all the time, you're gone." - Bill Gates
RE: PC guys cant make a phone
"In another room, a few executives watched Carl Yankowski's interview on CNBC, taping it for playback at the employee meeting that was to commence in minutes. After CNBC announcers gushed over "the most talked-about IPO," the camera cut to Carl Yankowski in the Nasdaq studio. Usually a compelling public speaker, Yankowski seemed out of his element. When asked about larger screens for palmtops, he answered stiffly, "We are well positioned whichever way the market goes." As the interview came to a close, the reporter said, "I've got to ask you about your suit." Yankowski smiled. He was wearing a very special suit, he let on, designed to satisfy the public's high expectations from Palm's IPO. The shiny pinstripes woven into the otherwise standard wool suit were made from threads of pure gold. CNBC cut back to the studio anchor. "Was that for real?" he asked the correspondent. The Palm managers assembled around the TV set looked at each other. "We're not showing this video," one of the executives decreed. Then they walked out to start the employee meeting."
-excepted from "Piloting Palm"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0471089656/
Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P
RE: PC guys cant make a phone
I really dislike that turtlenecked, thumb-up-the-ass, liberal-with-too-much-money Steve Jobs. BUT - I'll give the SOB credit - he delivers the goods.
RE: PC guys cant make a phone
Better a black turtleneck than a gold pinstripped suit!
Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P
RE: PC guys cant make a phone
No, *Handspring* spent years making the Treo.
Palm spent (probably a drunken afternoon) making the Tungsten W - the revolutionary "phone without a microphone."
Hence - Palm had to buy Handspring, as Handspring had the knowledge to design a *microphone* into a cellular headset. It was a groundbreaking design to the Palm engineers, I guess...
Something I Learned in the Course of Ten Years at Apple...
They're cashmere. Five hundred Benjamins apiece.
RE: PC guys cant make a phone
You actually bring up a good point in a roundabout way. Palm should have kept a T|W aka "Tungsten Wireless" line going alongside the Treo.
First of all, Had Palm put a 100mhz+ CPU, OS5, and forgotten about voice capabilities completely, the T|W wouldn't have been a half-bad device for its time. It certainly beats the lame Palm VII/VIIx/i705 debacles!
Eventually, Palm could have eventually merged the T|C and T|W into a cellular data-ONLY + BT + wi-fi device (the T|WC) targeted at the enterprise market and hardcore users. Eventually things like 320*480, lots of RAM/internal storage, VOIP etc. could have trickled down into the "wireless handheld" group (or a T|WC2 model)that Palm & the carriers might not necessary want in a Treo. Theoretically Palm might have ended up with something approaching an more PDA/data-oriented iPhone equivalent.
Then the Treos could stay firmly rooted in the phone-oriented "smartPHONE" area with their cellular voice functionality.
Everyone wins in such a scenario instead of trying to force the horribly comprimised Treo platform down everyone's throat.
Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P
iphone
Colligan eating crow
$499 ?
As written on http://www.apple.com/iphone/
Screen size 3.5 inches
Screen resolution 320 by 480 at 160 ppi
Storage 4GB or 8GB
GSM Quad-band (MHz: 850, 900, 1800, 1900)
Wireless data Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) + EDGE + Bluetooth 2.0
Camera 2.0 megapixels
Dimensions 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches / 115 x 61 x 11.6mm
Weight 4.8 ounces / 135 grams
We just have to wait some months and we'll see...
WAKE UP Palm!
RE: $499 ? With 2 year contract...?
See: http://www.corriere.it/Fotogallery/Tagliate/2007/01_Gennaio/09/iph2/19.jpg
So probably unlocked version will cost more or less $200 more (like Treo 680 which is sold at 200 with 2 year contract with Cingular and at 400 unlocked).
So real prices will be 699 and 799? Quite expensive but anyway a great machine.
RE: $499 ?
You did notice that Palm wants $620-$650 for an unlocked 700w or 750 Treo (end of month)?
Same price point, now lets review the specs again...
No contest unless you're looking for less of a phone.
RE: iPhone is a CISCO Trademark?
-- http://www.amtddj.inlumen.com/bin/djstory?StoryId=CrAmHuaebqLqWmdyYodm
That may be a volatile link so here's the meat from it:
== "...Given Apple's numerous requests for permission to use Cisco's iPhone
== trademark over the past several years, and our extensive discussions with
== them recently, it is our belief that with their announcement today Apple
== intends to agree to the final document and public statement," the company
== said in a statement Tuesday. Cisco said it distributed the documents to
== Apple on Monday night and expects to receive a signed agreement..."
RE: iPhone is a CISCO Trademark?
Good, because as a CSCO shareholder, I want to make sure that we get P-A-I-D!
Screen Size +
I think it was planned this way to make the iphone screen seem like so much more of an advance.
I'm happy to see that Apple had the muscle to convince the carriers to work with a phone with wifi- Maybe palm can follow suit-
I'm curious as to how the touch screen only will work- if it is ergonomically cool it would open up a lot of territory- imaginge a TX or Treo with no hardware buttons, just all the landscape as screen- you could have a pretty big on screen keyboard.
RE: Screen Size +
Remember, they introduced the T3 w/ 320*480 in 2003, the T5 in 2004, and the LifeDrive and TX in 2005. Then nothing since the TX with 320*480.
Palm's actually been regressing spec-wise (and loving every penny saved in the process) if you compare its flagship 2003/2004/2005 releases (T3, T5, TX, LifeDrive) to its flagship 2006 releases (700p, 750v)--no wi-fi, no internal storage, no 320*480, no stereo headphone jack etc.
Palm (and RIM, Nokia etc) simply cannnot use the smartphone bandwagon as an excuse to ignore the advance of technology ANY longer now that Apple's raised the bar to a new level.
Assuming the iPhone has no glaring bugs in its first revision, all Apple needs to do is tweak the design a bit (more internal flash storage, a MicroSD slot, 3G wireless) in subsequent 2nd/3rd gen devices and it'll be simply fantastic.
But it's the OS, as Foo said, that just blows everyone else out of the water.
This is not just Apple's opening salvo in the wireless wars but an outright "nuke 'em" of the technological laggards (RIM, Palm, Nokia etc).
Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P
RE: Screen Size +
Then nothing since the TX with 320*480.
[rant] How long have some of us been asking Palm to put out a PDA-centric smartphone with a 480x320 screen? I mean, look at this thing! Physically, it is almost exactly what we've been asking for. Max screen size in a minimal case. Palm, what is your problem? Are you going out of your way to ignore us? We told you that there was a market for this device. You could have easily beat Apple to the punch. All I can hope at this point is that you really are pouring everything you've got into some fantastic "secret third business" that is going to blow us all away, because if that isn't true and if it doesn't show up soon, I'm very much afraid for your future. [/rant]
Ok, having said all that, I will say that this iPhone is not the smartphone for me. This thing is not "inexpensive" by any stretch. Jobs may think "no stylus" is an advantage, but I want one and the software to support it. Of course there are other issues for me as well. But whether or not you can live with the specific list of features of this new phone, you've got to admit that at least Apple is still in the business of delivering a very attractive product. And it won't matter if your Treo can already do most of this, you know that Apple can run circles around everyone else when it comes to marketing and spin. Just like most people who forget that it was HandEra and Sony that were driving the PalmOS PDA hardware innovation, it won't take long before most people believe Apple created all of this.
I'm still waiting for the mythical color HandEra.
Thinking about Vista? Think again: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
RE: Screen Size +
___________________________________
Casio B.O.S.S --> M100 --> Vx --> M505 --> T3 -->RIM BB
Yankees, Steinbrenner,...... I will never turn to the dark side.
RE: Screen Size +
Case in point:
I've been recently looking for a new harddrive-based mp3 player that can handle light video usage.
I am replacing my great sounding, reliable but quirky Cowon iAudio X5 20gb.
My requirements are simple:
#1 30gb or more HD space (60gb or 80gb is ideal)
#2 TFT color screen that's at least 2" or 2.5" (ie suitable for the occasional video)
#3 Drag'n drop UMS capabilities. I WILL NOT put up with DRM/iTunes/proprietary media manager software. I will do all of my own ripping/encoding/transferring, thank you very much. I don't want Rockbox, just native UMS support so I can put anything on or off of the device at will. I don't want a "music" partition and a " data" partition either. WHY is this so hard to find nowdays?
#4 Reasonable battery life & build quality
#5 charge/line-out/USB ports built into the body of the unit (the fiddly subpack is my biggest complaint about the X5).
My search for an mp3 player like the above turned up fruitless. The HD-based mp3 player market is diminishing daily. I'll probably just end up buying another X5 and getting the 60gb version. *SIGH*. iRiver is fading fast and producing junk compared to their efforts of a few years ago. Cowon is regressing by fiddling around with small capacity flash and microdrive players and clunky PMPs. Sandisk's Sansa is fantastic in every way but even 8gb internal + 2gb MicroSD is too little space for my music.
Anyway, back OT: Apple's fantastic industrial designs and marketing blitz/brainwashing have effectively already sealed up the market for "higher end", non-flash mp3 players. In the past day everyone I've encountered--secretary, blue collar types etc. have been talking about the iPhone buzz.
I wonder if Cingular will try to very quickly rebrand themselves back into AT&T and use the tremendous momentum afforded by the iPhone's availability in June as the catalyst to bring a lot of new users and switching users into the fold!?! Hmmmm...
Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P
RE: Screen Size +
Cingular???
I could seriously see myself with one of these. It's beautiful. It seems to do everything right. It's loaded with features and technology.
I was drooling, ready to buy one...
...until...
...Cingular? CINGULAR???
*barf*
Wake me up when they're available unlocked and contract-free. I refuse to endure Cingular for a shiny piece of expensive technoplastic. My current carrier is GSM and my current phone was bought off the internet, unlocked, not tied to any carrier. I moved my SIM card over and configured it myself. I'll buy an iPhone when it figures out THAT bit of 1990s technology.
http://vtbsd.net/winhelp/
RE: Cingular???
A 2-year contract is REQUIRED!! WTF?? Apple & Jobs are boasting about how they pulled one on Cingular and made 'em redo their voice mail system to accomodate the iPhone...Wake up, Steve! The real winner in all of this is Cingular.
Apple, more so than ANY OTHER COMPANY EVER, could have used this opportunity to turn the industry on its ear! Apple could've done to stifling 2-year cellular phone contract what BestBuy are (sorta) tryng to do to mail-in rebates.
Apple's could've insisted that the iPhone be sold exclusively at retail at Cingular & Apple stores AND insisted that it can work "unwired" as a PDA/iPod without a voice plan. Essentially, Apple should've granted Cingular an "exclusive" to sell the phone w/ no strings attached in their store and/or guaranteed tech support etc. only when used with their SIM cards. Instead, this is going to turn into a coup for the bad ol' days of mandatory contracts etc.
Yup, Cingular's gonna be laughing all the way to the bank and Apple's going to have many, meany upset iPod zealots who are mired in a 2-year contract. I know several people who buy a new iPod each generation. What are those loyalists gonna do when the new 2nd generation iPhone comes out in '08 year and they want the 16gb version but they're still stuck halfway through their first iPhone's contract?
Well, Palm could still do what I recommended years ago and retreat to the sidelines and become something of a "renegade" hardware provider. Start selling unlocked Treo 680s at retail for $299 and tell the customer to bring their own SIM card/service.
Palm could still try to respin a small but solid line of refreshed line of PDAs as "Mobile Phone Companions" and do whatever possible with the carriers to ensure reliable, fast, no hassle, DUN Bluetooth networking. Palm could pitch a TX2 + RAZR type combination for users who want the greater flexibility, huge software library and expandable storage of a conventional PDA.
Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P
RE: Informal PIC Survey: Who here will probably DEFECT to iPhone?
But that iPhone is way interesting to me - it will be interesting, too, to see if Cingular - my cell company - changes their dataplans to make such a device more ... desirable...
So...no vote here, just commentary!
RE: Informal PIC Survey: Who here will probably DEFECT to iPhone?
The answer to your question will develop in the next six months. Depending on how Palm keeps current customers happy (product updates and support) and new potential customer interested (innovative products)
Innovative competition is Monopoly's most feared assassin.
RE: Informal PIC Survey: Who here will probably DEFECT to iPhone?
This iPhone has been no secret. Everyone knew it was coming for months if not years. Competitors were frozen like deer in the headlights.
RE: Informal PIC Survey: Who here will probably DEFECT to iPhone?
I can't say if it will be a total defection but the pressure is really on now for Palm and Access to innovate like never before.
RE: Informal PIC Survey: Who here will probably DEFECT to iPhone?
However, Apple is coming full throttle...
RE: Informal PIC Survey: Who here will probably DEFECT to iPhone?
What I'll probably do is ride out '07 "as is" & keep my Verizon "work" phone. Then once the initial bugs are ironed out I'll get an iPhone for personal media & data-centric usage (ie no voice plan) this time next year (or less if I am greatly desiring one).
Of course it'll be tough to give up a decade+ of Palm OS apps/utils/deeply ingrained usage habits but it has to happen sooner or later. For the time being, I'll...errr, keep hoping that Palm has been working on a heavily revamped CDMA FrankenGarnet Treo w/ 320*480 & wi-fi to come out this summer. Of course, I'm not going anywhere from PIC anytime soon and I'll never get rid of my TX or my old Pilot 1000 and PalmPilot Pro!
Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P
RE: Informal PIC Survey: Who here will probably DEFECT to iPhone?
I don't believe in "all-in-one" device. "All-in-one" device is for geeks, not for mass market. For mass market, you need a device with one main usage but which excels in this usage and is simple to use. And all those devices will have mobile com facility as a second nature.
Back to the survey, I imagine very well having a pda-phone (like the Treo) dedicated to business usage, but also an i-phone for music and video + a gps-phone in my car + an camera-camcorder-phone, and so on...
Who here will probably DEFECT to iPhone?
BUT I don't need a cell phone in North America. It made sense in Europe and it made sense in Asia, but the infrastructure just isn't there and the costs are too high and the technology is incompatible with the rest of the world. I would defect to the iPhone in a second... if I needed a cell phone.
As it stands, I'm going to defect to an iPod. I hope that feels like a slap in the face, Palm.
RE: Informal PIC Survey: Who here will probably DEFECT to iPhone?
I bought a Treo 270 because the limited input methods available on a regular phone, coupled with the "predictive" (more like astrology than Nostradamus) messaging drove me nuts. iPhone is also limited in that you have a touchscreen, and ONLY a touchscreen for input.
Seriously - try using the calculator on your Palm compared to a real-life with with physical buttons. No contest, eh?
Similarly, unless Apple have worked out a way to give tactile feedback (like David Beers' mini-pendulum idea) when you touch the screen, this thing will in no way replace the Treo as my communicator.
There's plenty of innovation and I am very impressed by the specs. But the price is insane and until I can hold one myself and fiddle, I'm not convinced that doing away with buttons is the way to go.
Big tick for finally ripping off the Treo ringer switch. 'Bout time this started making inroads on other devices!!
Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650 ---> Crimson Treo 680
RE: Informal PIC Survey: Who here will probably DEFECT to iPhone?
RE: Informal PIC Survey: Who here will probably DEFECT to iPhone?
Freakout makes good points regarding hard-buttons for phones (I've heard similar complaints from O2 users)– but a thumb pad at the cost of screen real estate? Personally, I prefer the big screen. Can't bring myself to go back to a 320SQ screen. Prefer to carry a separate phone and a T3. Which brings me back to iPhone – I'm still using a 3 year old device cause Palm hasn't produced anything better IMHO. Time for an OS change.
RE: Informal PIC Survey: Who here will probably DEFECT to iPhone?
RE: Informal PIC Survey: Who here will probably DEFECT to iPhone?
iPhone certainly has an impressive feature set, but the usability is actually inferior to a phone with with real buttons. No matter how much Jobs tries to denigrate "those little plastic keyboards" as he did in his keynote, the simple fact is that a touchscreen is great for tapping on single items, but not for dialing long strings of numbers or typing out messages and email. Tactile Feedback are the magic words.
iPhone looks like an awesome personal media player and internet browser. But as a phone it leaves a bit to be desired.
RE: Informal PIC Survey: Who here will probably DEFECT to iPhone?
Agreed. But I believe a large portion of us prefer the PDA functionality over the phone and are happy to live with the phone's short comings (which are minor for an infrequent phone user - I encourage my clients to email, it's the year 2007 for goodness sakes). Let's face it, the experience of reading / viewing is not only more glamorous on a 320x480 screen but for many office functions it is the ONLY practical option. You simply can't do the safari full page viewer thing on a square screen - it's too small - too much scrolling. Big screen=more functional device. Thus I gotta side with jerz2dc on this one.
RE: Informal PIC Survey: Who here will probably DEFECT to iPhone?
If you *MUST* tie in with Cingular then you're stuck with Cingular's data rates (and quality) which are likely "slightly" more. You've already paid $500-600 for the phone, sold your soul to Cingular based on this unproven technology for 2 years, and now you are faced with scorching monthly rates for data (which will be a given with that nice big screen...).
Downloading a few 99cent songs off iTunes and/or ripping a few CDs into your iPod is one thing, but recurring monthly data charges will probably blindside more than a few of the data newbies who will be buying these things and start using the browser more and more.
RE: Informal PIC Survey: Who here will probably DEFECT to iPhone?
But I believe a large portion of us prefer the PDA functionality over the phone and are happy to live with the phone's short comings (which are minor for an infrequent phone user - I encourage my clients to email, it's the year 2007 for goodness sakes).
And when you reply to those emails, are you going to type them on the virtual keyboard? I'll keep my dinky plastic keyboard thanks...
Let's face it, the experience of reading / viewing is not only more glamorous on a 320x480 screen but for many office functions it is the ONLY practical option.
Yes, very true. Palm need a larger-screened Treo pronto.
RE: Who here will probably DEFECT to iPhone? Walt Mossberg?
-- http://maximunk.com/forum/index.php?topic=744.msg14666#msg14666
I for one
Palm m125 > Palm Zire 71 > Tapwave Zodiac 1 > Palm Zire 72 > Sharp Zaurus SL-C1000 + 4gb MicroDrive + Palm Tungsten T|3 (1100mah)
My T|3 is too [i]sexy[/i] for me.
RE: I for one
___________________________________
Casio B.O.S.S --> M100 --> Vx --> M505 --> T3 -->RIM BB
Yankees, Steinbrenner,...... I will never turn to the dark side.
Proof of Palm's snail-speed development
Virtual Keypad View?
Anybody have a pic of the Virtual Keypad View? I want to see what it looks like but I can't find a pic. Also, how do you feel about a VIRTUAL Keypad as opposed to hard buttons to dial?
RE: Virtual Keypad View?
-- http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2007/01/20070109151400.shtml
RE: Virtual Keypad View?
got it - thanks -
http://images.macrumors.com/gallery/mwsfkeynote_iphone2/photos/Img0096.JPG
thoughts on virtual vs. hard keys?
RE: Virtual Keypad View?
Palm m125 > Palm Zire 71 > Tapwave Zodiac 1 > Palm Zire 72 > Sharp Zaurus SL-C1000 + 4gb MicroDrive + Palm Tungsten T|3 (1100mah)
My T|3 is too [i]sexy[/i] for me.
RE: Virtual Keypad View?
I'm still waiting for the mythical color HandEra.
Thinking about Vista? Think again: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
Bye Palm
Palm, it was very very nice knowing you but your inability to innovate is your demise. We had a lot of good times. Come June it will be a fond memory.
I'll still search for Cobalt or ALP every once in a while - on my iPhone.
Lastly I'll miss the Palm blogs - fair thee well. It was a great community!
RE: Bye Palm
Palm m125 > Palm Zire 71 > Tapwave Zodiac 1 > Palm Zire 72 > Sharp Zaurus SL-C1000 + 4gb MicroDrive + Palm Tungsten T|3 (1100mah)
My T|3 is too [i]sexy[/i] for me.
RE: Bye Palm
Apple now has raised the standards in hardware quality and software innovation with iPhone and Palm looks unable to follow. All is not lost, but I doubt Palm has the guts to return to its glory days. Major changes in every regard should be done. While people still buy Treos, Palm should try to win back the developer base. Linux is still there, Java is still begging to get to PDAs/SmartPhones, linux/java developers are millions, the number of good ideas and market opporunities is infinite ... And yes, Tungsten/Aluminium/etc is still better than cheap plastic.
So much yet so a few things missing...
1. No keyboard. Virtual keyboard does not could. There's no tactile feedback and that gets annoying, plus without 4-way navigator or any other way of navigating you're Dependant on the touchscreen. It will probably get scratched pretty fast.
2. It only works with cingular (in the US). Everybody seems t have a very strong opinion of what carrier is best, but cingular has almost no major 3g service. It only exists in major cities. Verizon has my area covered. Cingular: Not even close and probably won't be for a couple more years at least.
3. Does it even support 3g/high speed where it's available? It looks like not.
4. No videoconferencing camera. Given, the treo also does not have one, but it's starting to become more common.
Admittedly, it has some amazing features though that I would LOVE to have on my phone.
This is going to make my next-phone devcision VERY difficult.
RE: So much yet so a few things missing...
Palm m125 > Palm Zire 71 > Tapwave Zodiac 1 > Palm Zire 72 > Sharp Zaurus SL-C1000 + 4gb MicroDrive + Palm Tungsten T|3 (1100mah)
My T|3 is too [i]sexy[/i] for me.
A new device marriage
Already the spending for 99cents per tune folks are getting fed up. I don't think they will get much traction unless they allow transfer of tunes to their phones using the same IPOd ID.
Sure there is a 6 month wait, but supposedly there is a samsung cpu that will save energy and do the same functions as the intel chip IPhone will use.
The cool factor folks will always have new gadgets to chase, but right now it is just the honeymoon, the married life with a new device will be the final decider if this is the one device to get married to.
'Apple’s new, remarkably compact Bluetooth headset'
If anyone has any pics (official or leak) of this headset ?
And as you probably guess, I'll switch my 650 for it... as soon as Rogers announce they're gonna carry it...
RE: 'Apple’s new, remarkably compact Bluetooth headset'
It's all there:
RE: 'Apple’s new, remarkably compact Bluetooth headset'
God they know how to design a product...
I am just thinking of the headaches that product managers from Palm, MS and Nokia must have tonight... I hope they can get 2 for 1 booze !!
RE: 'Apple’s new, remarkably compact Bluetooth headset'
But yes, I imagine that Palm is panicking. Apple have stolen all their good touch-UI features, made them slicker and come up with some new ones to boot. (that pinch-zoom is very cool)
OS X vs. still hacking away at Frankengarnet
RE: OS X vs. still hacking away at Frankengarnet
_________________
Sean
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
RE: OS X vs. still hacking away at Frankengarnet
-- http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA061277
Two and Half Years in the Making
It underlines just how slow and lacking in innovation Palm has been during the same time despite receiving the Treo design on a plate from Handspring!!!
RE: Two and Half Years in the Making
Yep, what he said. All of that "history". All of that previous R&D. All of that time. All of those suggestions from your loyal (previously loyal) fan base. Come on Palm!
I'm still waiting for the mythical color HandEra.
Thinking about Vista? Think again: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
RE: Two and Half Years in the Making
They hardly touched the ball, after all the time they've had the treo line, they managed to subtract the stick out top and change the screen to the one Handspring originally wanted but couldn't afford. Oh, and add Bluetooth.
The lazy sods deserve the trip to the unemployment office that this will bring them. If I added as little value to my company as they have to Palm I would be down at the dole office now.
No, please Palm employees tell me what the hell you've been doing to earn those pay cheques, ‘cos I ain't seen squat from you guys in years.
It's like when you were in school and you hand in the effort you did on the bus coming in and it's compared to something that was worked on for weeks; lavishing love and attention on it, creating something they were proud of, whereas you couldn’t be bothered.
It's embarrassing. Actually, Palm, I'm embarrassed for you. Look at what Apple have done and go and think about what the hell you're going to do next.
I wouldn't want to be in Palm HQ, if you guys aren't depressed tomorrow it's 'cos you don't actually give a crap any more.
RIP Palm (1992-2007/8)
Multi-touch Screen Mouse-Like Functionality
It feels like most of the functions were copied/mirrowed/inspired by the Treo. However, 10 steps ahead.
Since I joined PIC two years ago, I've read people screaming for 320x420 screens, Wi-Fi, updated OS...etc. Unfortunately, it seems that Apple was the only one listening... There must be no coincidence the iPhone is a compilation of Palm user's wishlist.
RE: Multi-touch Screen Mouse-Like Functionality
If Jobs delivers anywhere near this chart, then it's Game-Set-Match!
http://images.macrumors.com/gallery/mwsfkeynote_iphone1/photos/Img0064.JPG
... at least they think the Treo is easiest of the smartfones. Palm at least it's a moral victory. :-o
Pat Horne
Processor?
I know this is a Palm enthusiast's site. However, these technical questions are really important. How long and how much will Palm stretch Garnet's life, now that there is a new bad boy in town?
RE: Processor?
Uhhh, the choice for Palm seems to be akin to either a rock or hard place.
Pat Horne
RE: Processor?
Pat Horne
RE: Processor?
I don't think that's an OLED screen. I think it's a samsung tft screen, but i'm guessing.
May You Live in Interesting Times
Notes from the iPhone presentation (very sketchy)
- "Every once in awhile, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything."
- Did Mac really change the computer industry?! Customary Apple hubris
- Shit, the applause is deafening. Cultists! Or just really impressed?
- iPod, phone, internet. No messaging or email, the previous so-called "killer app" of smartphones. "One device"
- They have gone with iPhone, despite the other product already called that.
-Smartphones. He's very condescending. Smartphones "are not so smart and not so
easy to use". He thinks Treo is hard to use.
-Leapfrog product "way smarter"?
"Reinvent the phone"? I see a lot of features ripped straight from the Treo i.e. Silent switch
-Revolutionary UI - result of years of R&D "interplay of hardware and software"
- Keyboards are a problem. As are fixed button. He ignores WinMob's softkeys. It doesn't work because "buttons and controls can't change". Computers solved this problem with varied onscreen WYSIWYG interfaces. Solution is not stylus.
-Finger is the best pointing device in the world.
- Multi-Touch is "like magic". Far more accurate than any previous display.
"Super-smart". Ignores unintended touches and has gesture recognition. Patented. Apple are very confident obviously
- Apple think their shithouse Mighty Mouse is a revolution. It's crap because it has no buttons - and neither does the iPhone...
- "Software on mobile phones is like baby software". There's a reason STeve - desktop software notoriously hard to translate to small device, even large-screened one like this. PalmOS vs. the desktop-like WinMob, POS always tops surveys in user satisfaction like recent IDC report (look this up, was it IDC?)
- *Breakthrough* - apparently. 5 years ahead of other mobies. iphone runs OS X?? power management!! linux hasn't worked mobile so far. but should be a boon for development. "Desktop class applications & networking. Not the crippled stuff you find on most phones"
- Allen K. "People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware."
- Syncing with iTunes. Direct assault on Palm Desktop and HotSync. Definite plus as far as one-stop syncing goes. But auto-syncing has been a nightmare for MS w/ activesync. Contacts calendar etc + media. Can automatically migrate from iPod to iPhone - killer! But I hate iTunes.
- Design is "wonderful for your hand". 3.5 inch screen vs. 2.75 inch on Treo. High res - 160ppi 320x480. Home button ripped from Treo. "Really thin." 11.6mm - thinner than Q and blackjack. Treo Ringer switch stolen and volume controls in same location.
- 2 megapixel cam - sweet! 3.5mm headset jack yes!. SIM tray ripped from Treo. Power button on top. Speaker and mic on bottom as well as standard iPod dock. Will this be compatible with iPod cars?
- proximity sensor will automatically sense when it's up against your head and deactivate touchscreen. ambient light sensor automatically adjusts brightness to your environment. saves power. sounds cool but unless they get it right very annoying. Brightcam anyone? Accelerometer automatically switches from portrait to landscape.
- longer than Treo in hand. screw thinness, this is going to be sticking out of my pocket.
- excellent media integration with all the usual iPod suspects.
- they do digital video out. impressive.
-keyguard unlock is a little finger touch-swish. innovative but also annoying. button would be nice.
- home button just like a Palm. scroll with your finger. Souped-up iPod but retains iPod hierarchical menus. once again, playlist making is going to suck. scrolling and flipping is beautiful. Cover flow from iTunes is quite cool.
- Videos are all automatically in landscape. With a device so thin this has GOT to suck the batteries savagely. format support? onscreen touch controls are pretty. double-tap adjusts aspect ratio.
- shit all the guy has to say is "isn't this cool" and the crowd goes nuts. ****ing lapdogs. when did skepticism die?
- "Best iPod we've ever made."
- Scrolling with your finger is not new, Apple.
- They want to "reinvent the phone". Amazing how hard it is to make calls on most phones. Most people dial every time, not Treo users, we just type a few letter on our real keyboard...
- Use Contacts like never before, again, unless you've been using a Palm already.
- Visual voicemail. Like the Treo 700w/750 but better.
- quad-band world phone. GSM. No 3G.
- Incoming call screen a lot like Treo. But much slicker!!
- Virtual phone button, just like Treo hard phone button takes you straight to phone app. Scrolling with your finger. Contacts looks IDENTICAL to Treo implementation. On-call screen again looks a lot like Treo with onscreen speaker controls and so forth. Again much slicker and sleeker. Treo call conferencing ripped off too! Unbelievable! And they're saying they came up with this first! But they don't have Treo's Caller ID photos on conference, which makes it easy to tell who's on your conference call, Apple have gone for scrolling text instead, doesn't work at a glance.
- Favorites ripped off too!!!!!!!!!!! Shit, Apple must have been studying the Treo intently. Is it conincidence that this thing has a lot of the features that Treo users have been clamoring for the last few years? (wi-fi, bluetooth 2.0, better graphics)
- on-screen Dial Pad is the same as Treo too. Amusingly jobs dialed the wrong number to start with - a demonstration of the limitations of touchscreens. but bigger screen should help.
- Oh this is too rich. SMS chats have been ripped straight off from the Treo, but sleeked-up. Virtual touch keyboard?!?! Are you ****ing kidding? who wants to type messages on that? "Error-prevention and correction". "Faster than all these little plastic keyboards" bulsshit Steve, your onstage typing was way slower than i can get out of my Treo. when it's so thin and long it's going to be difficult to brace with two thumbs too.
- Best photo application ever???? That looks a hell of a lot like Palm's photo album. But again, sliding sleeker menus make the Treo look ancient. Shit, that photo finger-stretching thing is VERY cool. easy to set pictures as your wallpaper. easy as a Palm in fact.
- Reinvented the phone..... not really. You're a bit late Apple.
- Uses proper HTML email. Yay for spammers!! Safari runs on iPhone. Quite impressive, given the memory and processor limitations.
- Widgets should be interesting.
- Google Maps is not new; also available for almost any other phone on the planet.
- automatically swithces between wi-fi and cellular when it detects wi-fi which means you'll have to leave wi-fi permanently on to take advantage. battery sucking!!! but still cool. way ahead of the curve here. How the hell did they get Cingular to agree to that?
- IMAP and POP3. Yahoo will provide free push?!! Shit, Blackberry is in trouble.
- Parses phone numbers just like Treo...
- Photos in emails works well
- Controls on top rather than bottom of screen. Gonna get annoying for your thumb....
- As is that keyboard. Man, it's taking him forever to type with one finger. Faster than "those plastic keyboards" huh.... Why isn't he using thumbs? Do the thumbs resting on the side of the touchscreen screw with the controls maybe?
- Safari is a great implementation. Whole website onscreen at once! double-tapping on anything dynamically zooms and also works with photo "pinching" method. It's quite impressive, but can't be sure it's "better" than Treo's method of optimizing the pages for a small screen first. need to play with one!
- Can browse pages while still loading. Visual back button with thumbnails is great.
- In short: the most impressive feature by far. Does it do Java?
- Widgets are the usual crap: weather, stock quotes etc. A lot like WinMob today screen plugins actually...
- Google maps is exactly like Treo version, but much slicker - pretty animations. Call from within maps identical. Pinch-zoom is there. Why is the crowd applauding, this is really old news!!
- Basically, the only "revolutionary" part of the internet experience is the wifi and the full-featured browser. still not to be sneezed at.
- gratuitous self-promotion from yahoo and google ceo's. don't bore us get to the chorus...
- Blinking phone button to indicate call status nice touch. Multitasking while phone is on is again identical to Treo. he emails a wallpaper while on a call, much like Treo. How is he browsing while on a call??!! impossible without UMTS I thought and this isn't 3G. As with Treo, music automatically pauses and resumes when calls drop in.
- He's saying how different Contacts and Email are from other smartphones, but it looks identical!! Are people really buying this?
- Web browsing however is indeed much better. Palm could easily match iPod features by updating the built-in pTunes to version 4, but the sync side of things is definitely lacking
- New white iPod headphones with mic.
- Cute little Bluetooth headset. A lot like Palm's Ultralight Headset really...
- Battery life. 5 hours battery life with talk, video and browsing?!?!?! HOW? batteries simply aren't that good yet, especially with big bright screens. 650 had excellent battery life but that was a brick and PalmOS was always designed for mobile devices. OS X power management is either the best ever or Apple are exaggerating. this demands real-world testing
- Price: disingenuously compares $299 blackberry pearl. doesn't mention Free Treo 680... 4GB is $499 but With contract. 8GB is $599 also w/ contract. shit, no one's going to be buying these unlocked. PS3 anyone?
- shipping in june. europe by Q4 '07. Asia in 2008.
- Unique carrier relationship eh? "Doing innovation together" also means "doing what the people subsidising our product want". even giant Nokia doesn't get special treatment from US carriers
- gratuitious Cingular self-promotion. **** this guy is boring. bring back Jobs, even if he is an arrogant little jerk
- "unmatched distribution" through Apple and Cingular stores...
- Multi-year exclusive Cingular partnership. Not an MVNO. This could limit US sales given that Verizon and Sprint have huge footprints and faster 3G
- 26 million game consoles, 94m digicamas, 135m mp3 players, 202m PC's, 957m Mobile phones. could be hard for apple to make a dent... who am i kidding, this is going to sell like hotcakes
- Apple has now changed their name. No longer Apple Computer, they are just Apple now.
- "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been." - wayne gretzky quote.
- Thought: Palm is quite possibly ****ed.
- standing ovation? drink the poision you cultists
Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650 ---> Crimson Treo 680
RE: Notes from the iPhone presentation (very sketchy)
Thanks for all those unpolished, honest, first reaction phrases.
Was very interesting to read. Read every line.
:D
RE: Notes from the iPhone presentation (very sketchy)
Did Mac really change the computer industry?! Customary Apple hubris
It did change the industry indirectly. Microsoft Word and Excel were developed first for the then new Macintosh.
Billy Gates then approached Apple with an offer to license the Mac UI for use on Pc compatibles.
Apple showed him the door.
Billy decided to make his own version for PCs and called it Windows.
Versions 1 and 2 were flops then version 3 came along and the rest is history.
Before the Mac, PCs used MS-DOS and command line interfaces.
After the Mac, PC compatibles used Windows graphical user interface.
So yes, the industry was changed but not in the manner the Apple cultists will like to believe.
RE: Notes from the iPhone presentation (very sketchy)
I have mostly avoided Apple products due to incompatibility or high prices. That being said, with their computers and laptops able to run Windows and Linux as well as OS X, and this little device, I'm really tempted to reconsider my positions. I WON'T be using Vista, so that leaves me with the following options:
Stick with XP
Use OS X (i.e. buy a Mac/MacBook)
Convert totally to Linux
Some combination of the above
My 4G iPod (the one Apple product I have) is getting a little worn, and I like the idea of being able to fit all in my pocket. I have traditionally hated the so-called "convergence" devices, as I couldn't find the features I wanted or they were vastly stripped down. This little baby seems to have done all, or at least most, things right. As I said before, we still have to see if performance lives up to the hype. But knowing Apple, if it doesn't, it will come very close.
1/2 and inch thin (actually a little less). Very nice.
_________________
Sean
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
good news
So is this really that bad news for palm? I think the iphone is really directed at WinMob. And anything that beats WinMob has to be good for any company that's not microsoft.
I just want to point out
http://www.palminfocenter.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23644&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=16
/Still hanging on to my precious T3...
RE: I just want to point out
Palm+HSprng->P1->PSRC->Cobalt->ALP->Access->GarnetBacktoPalm = NOT!
Pat Horne
Email without a kb?
Oh yeah, and why no 3G...? Come on Apple - even Palm has 3G these days!! ;-)
Still, if I was a 16yo kid with money to burn I'd snap up the first iPhone I could...
JLM.
RE: Email without a kb?
Keyboard or bust...
JLM.
Has anyone mentioned that multitaskign demo yet?
The demo where Jobs was listening to music, got a cell call, retrieved an image and sent it via Wi-Fi, then ended the call returning to music, was amazing. I'm still floored by it.
And I'm not even a smartphone fan!
Any chance for success in the enterprise market?
probably not. so i guess Palm and Blackberry et al is safe from iPhone competition there.
Excel and Word Documents?
i forgot to ask - can iPhone support Excel and Word Documents out of the box? that's a big deal to me. if not, perhaps Datviz is on the project?
will/are developers lining up to develop for this puppy and/or is it an easy port from desktop OSX?
RE: Any chance for success in the enterprise market?
Why not?
Seriously - why not?
No kidding - why not?
RE: Any chance for success in the enterprise market?
Pat Horne
RE: Any chance for success in the enterprise market?
Maybe because they want to continue to have customers after the iPhone blows Palm off the map?
Heck, if DataViz can't make anything that works better than D2G on the platform that's been the same for five years, I hope they DON'T port to the iPhone. Somebody will do it, and I'll bet you a shiny nickel that it'll rock.
I got suckered into paying for D2G to view PDFs. Never gonna make that mistake again. What a lousy app...
RE: Any chance for success in the enterprise market?
I guess it all depends on how cut down the OS X is on this thing. Until we know more of it's guts there's no way to know to what extent the Word Processors already running on Mac OS could be tooled to fit. From Abiword, to OpenOffice, or iWork.
RE: Any chance for success in the enterprise market?
what extent the Word Processors already running on Mac OS could be tooled to fit. From Abiword, to OpenOffice, or iWork.
What of the obvious elephant in the room, Microsoft Word for the Mac or don't you know Microsoft Office is available for OS X? (Word and Excel actually started life on the Mac platform and was later brought to Windows).
Sheesh!
Anyway it looks like it's not going to happen unless Apple reverses its stupid decision of not allowing any third party apps unto the iPhone.
Caveats...
If Apple doesn't allow for development of 3rd party applications, at least in the medium to long term, then it also has a danger of failure. The ability to develop and install 3rd party applications is what made the handheld, and later the smartphone, space so exciting, dynamic, and successful. Just my $0.02 here, but I don't think I'm that far off.
Granted that not much is missing here. 3G is important for some, but a large portion of the mobile market is still not tied to it. If Apple wants the corporate world, then some form of encryption is needed, and I have not seen/heard mention of that for this device. Word/Excell is still unconfirmed, but I think with OS X embedded, it has a good chance of being there. We'll see.
As a pure consumer device, this thing rocks.
_________________
Sean
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
RE: Any chance for success in the enterprise market?
- Cingular exclusivity: only corporations which are already using Cingular can get iPhones. I doubt the availability of the device is enough to motivate any enterprise to switch carriers.
- Cost: the price of the iPhone is exorbitant. Corporations are unlikely to be willing to pay two or three times the cost of a Treo for a phone on the strength of its ability to play your music and a cool-looking interface.
- No Outlook or Office support: this is a killer--the biggest use case for smartphones in the enterprise is getting email, appointments and such off Outlook servers, followed closely by being able to at least read (if not edit) MS Office documents.
- No development model: many enterprises use smartphones to support custom applications, developed in-house. That's not possible with the iPhone.
RE: Any chance for success in the enterprise market?
stone - all of these issues can and will be easily overcome. we've only just begun.
RE: Any chance for success in the enterprise market?
Faboo. Be sure to drop me a note when you and Steve get it all sorted out, wouldja?
RE: Any chance for success in the enterprise market?
RE: Any chance for success in the enterprise market?
I'll be surprised if there isn't any Outlook sync by launch time if it isn't built in already.
Stonemirror - Palm and Palmsource/ACCESS probably view six months (or is that 2 years?) as too short a time to accomplish much but one shouldn't judge other companies' abilities by their own company's limitations.
After all, in the past four years Apple has made several revisions to OS X, undeniably a more complex OS than Cobalt, with each OS X revision being stable and running on at least four different processors: G3, G4, G5, Intel Dual Core, with the current and upcoming versions now running on the Xeon (Mac Pro, Xserve) as well.
In contrast, just how many different shipping products and processor types have we seen with Cobalt over the same period of time?
We all know the answer to that question here!
In fairness Apple is a substantially larger company but they're now in direct competion with Palm's Treos.
RE: Any chance for success in the enterprise market?
There's surely been not the slightest suggestion of Outlook support, and if it were easy to do, RIM and Good wouldn't have been able to make much of a business out of providing it. Licensing a solution (and with Motorola's acquisition of Good, there are fewer folks to license it from) is not something you can do at a moment's notice, either: negotiations, contracts, lawyers, it all takes time. Not to mention achieving the integration of that solution into the rest of the system, something Steve--not wrongly--treasures so highly. That can take a lot of time, not to mention a lot of thought.
No, the iPhone doesn't have Outlook support because Steve understands that this device isn't aimed at that market. What market he thinks it is aimed at is an intriguing question: one poll of 1,800 recent purchasers of cell phones found only 21 (not twenty-one percent, mind you, just twenty-one of 'em) who paid more than $400 for theirs.
But the most interesting part is that, while Apple is scouring PalmInfoCenter seeking last-minute product direction as they head into FCC certification, they've given that same six months worth of notice to the rest of the carriers and device manufacturers, whom I'm sure are giving much thought to what they've learned.
During (and after) my decade at Apple, they never pre-announced stuff. Not ever. "I can't comment on unannounced products" was the mantra which they drummed into all of us.
They've gone and done it twice now. Interesting.
RE: Any chance for success in the enterprise market?
During (and after) my decade at Apple, they never pre-announced stuff. Not ever.
The explanation was in the paragraph you wrote right before this, I think: FCC certification. That process was going to make an awful lot of what Steve presented public information anyway, but without all the drama. To control the announcement Jobs figured Apple had to pre-announce.
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
RE: Any chance for success in the enterprise market?
Well, not the business-oriented Treos, but the 680 and the iPhone will likely be going after the same kind of customer.
No, the iPhone doesn't have Outlook support because Steve understands that this device isn't aimed at that market. What market he thinks it is aimed at is an intriguing question: one poll of 1,800 recent purchasers of cell phones found only 21 (not twenty-one percent, mind you, just twenty-one of 'em) who paid more than $400 for theirs.
Indeed. It's very hard to compete with free. Especially at 500 bucks for a low-end model. That kind of pricing is part of the reason Macs are still in the doldrums for PC market share. The other part, of course, is the Mac's lack of software in comparison to Windows. Strangely enough Apple are going for a walled-garden with iPhone, making exactly the same mistakes again.
But then, as Jobs pointed out, they're only aiming for a tiny slice of an enormous market.
Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650 ---> Crimson Treo 680
RE: Any chance for success in the enterprise market?
That kind of pricing is part of the reason Macs are still in the doldrums for PC market share.
I can't talk about their desktop machines, but the MacBook is seriously not that much more expensive than an equivalently equipped Windows laptop (you have to a least choose a reputable dealer and model line or it isn't a fair comparison). I spent a lot of time comparing the Dell Latitude line and a MacBook last summer. Both in hardware and in bundled software, the Mac was looking very good at only slightly more in price. In the end, it was the huge amount of money Apple wanted for a three year warranty that really changed the pricing and made my decision. (And that isn't even something most people seem to care about.)
However, a generic, parts-built PC with a good distro of Linux is the real money saver. But that hasn't seemed to result in huge market share for them either.
I'm still waiting for the mythical color HandEra.
Thinking about Vista? Think again: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
RE: Any chance for success in the enterprise market?
Mac's lack of software in comparison to Windows.
I'm sick to the back teeth of this lack of software mantra: have any of you who bleat this line actually looked at the range and quality of software available for OS X?
www.versiontracker.com
www.macupdate.com
There may be less software choice in the specialist or bespoke categories (even there I've been surprised: there's mac software for running a dental or medical practice) but for Joe or Joanne Public at home or in the office every category of software that's available on Windows is also available on the Mac: Word processors, spreadsheets, email apps, web browsers image processors, video editing, mp3 rippers, chat clients etc.
There are plenty of software solutions available for the Mac. Anyway this is Palminfocenter and not Macinfocenter.
RE: Any chance for success in the enterprise market?
> Linux is the real money saver. But that hasn't seemed to result
> in huge market share for them either.
Strangely, all my Windows boxes, built as above, eventually migrate to this state.
I think it's something intrinsic to their being.
Outlook Syncing is Already Available for the iPod
iTunes also supports contacts syncing via Outlook Express or calendar and contacts syncing via Outlook for the PC.
The question is whether Apple can make it a two way process for the iPhone.
It seems that the negotiation etc with regards to Outlook has already been done stonemirror.
There's also a more comprehensive third-party solution:
http://www.ipod-sync.com/index.htm
iPodSync is a tool for Windows users to keep your Microsoft Outlook calendar. contact, tasks, notes and email synchronized between your PC and your iPod. iPodSync also syncs news, weather forecasts and movie listings from the web. You can even use iPodSync to keep an up-to-date backup of your documents on your iPod. iPodSync will turn your iPod into PDA.
RE: Any chance for success in the enterprise market?
Whenever I go looking for free software tools to do various things on my PC, most of the Google results returned are for Windows, not Mac. There is simply a much wider variety available. (And so much spyware! ;) )
Space is my issue
No real keyboard??
RE: No real keyboard??
Stowaway Bluetooth Keyboard.
Good enough for Palm, good enough for this.
I get by just fine with an onscreen keyboard on my TX (Mini-KBD), and I kept my Tungsten C as long as possible not wanting to lose the thumboard. When half the keys died (and the second battery), I made the jump. Onscreen isn't so bad.
Apps, Apps and Apps
Ya see that iPhone/PALM commentary in Forbes?
== developers insist they can be trusted not to crash the
== thing--unlike some of those irresponsible developers who
== create bug-ridden applications for phones like Palm's Treo..."
Sheesh, whatta rep. Guess Apple doesn't want that, too.
4 iPhone hang-ups
2007.01.10
4 iPhone hang-ups
With the high-priced iPhone, Apple may be picking too many fights at once
It's brilliant, beautiful, groundbreaking. But there are a few serious hurdles Apple (AAPL) will have to clear if it wants to truly revolutionize the communications world with the iPhone it announced yesterday:
Price: As it stands now, the iPhone will cost $500 for a 4GB version and $600 for an 8GB version. That probably will place it among the most expensive phones and media players on the market. What's not clear, though, is whether those prices are before or after any subsidies Cingular might offer to get people to sign up for service plans. (Carriers typically discount phones by $200 or so to entice people to sign up for extended plans. If $500 and $600 are prices without a subsidy and service contract commitment, it could be a decent deal.) But either way, at these prices Apple is probably locking itself out of a market that has been key to the iPod's success: the youth market. Cingular's sure to sell iPhones with plenty of talk time and an unlimited data usage, and I suspect such a plan will cost at least $90 a month. High school and college students can't afford that, and neither can many recent college grads.
HD DVD vs. Blu-Ray: Winning a format war
The revenge of Verizon (and Samsung): Apple has painted itself into a corner and created its own problem – the iPhone announcement got the world excited about super-capable phones, even though most people (especially those under 25) won't be able to afford an iPhone. Also, Apple also decided to sign a multi-year exclusive deal with Cingular (T), which instantly makes it the enemy of not only every phone maker in the world, but also every other carrier in the United States – including giant Verizon (VZ). What's more, by announcing in January 2007 that the iPhone won't arrive in Asia until 2008, Apple has given electronics rivals Samsung and Sony (SNE) (among others) plenty of time to do their best phone work, release it first on their home turf, and even bring it to the U.S. to compete with the iPhone on every network but Cingular's.
iPhone Macworld keynote: report card time
The iPod effect: Apple CEO Steve Jobs began his justification of the iPhone price by describing it as an iPod and a smartphone in one. Reasonable tactic. And as an iPod, it's the most capable yet, aside from the 4GB and 8GB of storage. (No one with an 80GB video iPod would see an iPhone as a suitable upgrade.) But there are more unanswered questions here. Will Apple build a WiFi-only iPhone/iPod that's hard-drive based and uses Multi-touch? If not, why not? Consider that such a device could also act as a camcorder with a huge viewfinder, considering Apple has OS X and a 2-megapixel camera built into the iPhone design.
Bad buzz for Blu-ray
Licensing: One way Apple has to get around some of these problems: license the iPhone design and mobile OS X to others. It would be a very odd move for Apple, a company that likes to control its inventions (see Mac, iPod). But it could be essential. Microsoft's Windows Mobile doesn't have nearly as many sleek, mobile-ready features as the iPhone, but at least it's available to anyone who wants to build it into a phone; and while Microsoft (MSFT) doesn't have the best reputation for inventing innovative software interfaces, it has an excellent track record when it comes to copying Apple, and making lots of money in the process. Apple must remember: Its rivals don't have to come up with a better product to beat the iPhone in the marketplace. They just have to come up with one that's close enough, cheap enough, and more convenient to own.
http://blogs.business2.com/utilitybelt/2007/01/with_the_highpr.html
Cisco sues Apple over iPhone name
Cisco sues Apple over iPhone name
Network products maker alleges trademark infringement after product's unveiling at Macworld Tuesday; Apple shares fall in after-hours trade.
January 10 2007: 7:28 PM EST
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Cisco Systems is suing Apple Inc. in federal court for trademark infringement over the naming of Apple's new 'iPhone' iPod-phone, Cisco announced in a press release Wednesday.
Cisco has held the trademark on 'iPhone' since 2000. The company is seeking an injunction preventing Apple from using the 'iPhone' name.
Apple Chairman Steve Jobs announced the product on Tuesday at Macworld, saying, "We are calling it iPhone." Jobs also repeatedly referred to the phone by the name during the presentation at San Francisco's Moscone Center.
After Jobs' announcement, Cisco said the two companies had been in negotiations for weeks over use of the name.
Cisco spokeswoman Penny Bruce told CNN Tuesday, after Jobs' announcement, Cisco felt that "Apple intended to agree to the final documents and public statement that were distributed to them" on Monday.
By launching the iPod-phone with that name, Cisco assumed Apple "was going to agree to our terms," Cisco spokesman John Noh told CNN Wednesday.
Noh said Apple did not contact Cisco on Tuesday or Wednesday regarding the trademark agreement submitted.
Apple did not immediately return calls to CNN for comment.
"Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco's iPhone name," Mark Chandler, Cisco's senior vice president and general counsel, said in a written statement. "There is no doubt that Apple's new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission."
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
At the annual technology convention Tuesday, Jobs said that the new Apple product was a "revolutionary mobile phone" that will feature an iPod, phone and "Internet communicator."
The phone is rectangular, with the entire front surface a touch screen, and is run entirely by touch. It runs the Mac OS X, scaled down to a cell phone.
Apple (Charts) shares fell nearly 1 percent in after-hours trade. Cisco (Charts) closed Wednesday at $28.68 on Nasdaq. Shares of Apple closed at $97.00 on Nasdaq.
---By CNN's Katy Byron in New York
Find this article at:
http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/10/technology/cisco_apple/index.htm?postversion=2007011019
RE: Cisco sues Apple over iPhone name
Cisco Sues Apple: Do They Have an iPhone Case?
January 10, 2007
"You know, of course, that this means war." —Bugs Bunny
And now the iPhone name saga goes Looney Tunes. Cisco (CSCO) has sued Apple (AAPL) for trademark infringement over the iPhone. Cisco's claim: InfoGear, a company which it bought in 2000, had registered the trademark back in 1993. Apple's apparent response: Yes, but your trademark doesn't apply to our cell phone.
This is a tough one: Cisco's iPhone trademark is an expansive one, covering "communications terminals ... providing integrated telephone, data communications and personal computer functions." Sounds like an Apple iPhone to me.
But will Cisco's trademark stand up in court?
That's the question. Certainly, the U.S. Patent and TradeApple may be able to mount a "kleenex" defense - that InfoGear and Cisco hasn't done enough to defend the trademark from usurpers. Vocaltec used "iPhone" back in the '90s, as did Intel. And Cisco only revived the name last year, selling iPhones through its Linksys subsidiary.
And there's the question of overseas trademarks. Both are global companies, and both have registered iPhone in a host of countries. Apple plans to launch its iPhone in the U.S., first, but it has global ambitions.
From Cisco's statement Tuesday claiming that the companies were in final negotiations the night before Steve Jobs's Macworld keynote, it seems like the companies were playing a game of high-stakes poker - and Cisco, asking for some additional terms, gambled and lost. At least this round.
http://blogs.business2.com/beta/2007/01/cisco_sues_appl.html
RE: Cisco sues Apple over iPhone name
I had a funny feeling yesterday that there was going to be a fight over that name.
RE: Cisco sues Apple over iPhone name
This will be fun to watch, but the battle will be short lived.
-------------------------------
PocketFactory, www.pocketfactory.com
The iPhone Blog, www.theiphoneblog.com
Why Cisco Sued Apple
Why Cisco Sued Apple
By Jim Cramer
RealMoney.com Columnist
1/11/2007 3:04 PM EST
URL: http://www.thestreet.com/markets/activetraderupdate/10332081.html
Stop listening to all the claptrap about Apple (AAPL) and Cisco (CSCO) and what Cisco really wants: monetary damages, stopping the iPhone and the like.
Cisco doesn't want royalties on iPhone. Cisco could care less about keeping the name iPhone. These theories are all wrong.
Cisco's trying to get cool. It isn't cool now.
Here's the deal: I believe that what Cisco really wants is to have Apple open up the Apple TV device -- the just-announced set-top box that streams video from your PC to your TV -- and other products for Cisco to interface with.
Cisco knows that both Cisco and Apple are going to really go at it in the digital home; we have read that repeatedly in all of the "battle for the digital home/couch" stories. A joint arrangement for the home between Cisco and Apple would give Cisco a real leg up, because Apple has the kids and Cisco has no consumer pull at all in the teenage market, which is, of course, the future.
Teens drive the decisions on this consumer stuff. (Again, advantage Cramer: I have the kids telling me TiVo vs. DVR.) Not the parents. And the teens are the ones who will decide everything when this Apple TV product is good and ready.
No one seems to have focused on this side of the story.
They should; it is the truth.
Disconnected proximity sensor?
I wonder how sensitive that sensor is?
I wonder if it would cause the screen to blank when your fingers approached the screen?
Maybe it is position-sensitive as well?
I wonder if you're laying on the beach and try to type the screen blanks?
Etc etc etc.
Giggle.
Data input via BlueTooth Keyboard?
Apple's icing on Cingular's cake
Apple's icing on Cingular's cake
The once-hapless wireless operator bounced back -- and landed the hyped Apple iPhone. Fortune's Stephanie Mehta tells how they did it.
By Stephanie N. Mehta, Fortune senior writer
January 19 2007: 5:56 AM EST
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- By the time Apple's Macworld Expo rolled around in early January, Steve Jobs' plan to launch a cell phone wasn't much of a surprise -- in fact, the much-blogged-about iPhone was probably the worst-kept secret in technology. The big shocker was his decision to grant a multi-year U.S. exclusive to Cingular, a wireless operator that just a few years ago was one of the wireless industry's most hapless operators.
In case you'd forgotten, AT&T (Charts)-owned Cingular was actually losing subscribers in 2002, back when wireless customers were ripe for the picking. The wireless company, which started out as a joint venture of the old SBC and BellSouth, operated on a little-known cellular standard called TDMA that, thanks to its small number of customers worldwide, boasted exactly zero cool handsets.
In 2004 Cingular agreed to acquire AT&T Wireless, another TDMA carrier that was making the transition to the more popular GSM standard. But AT&T started moving customers to the GSM system before it was ready, resulting in dropped calls and poor sound quality. Cingular ended 2004 with the most complaints of any wireless operator in the United States -- about 289 grievances per million customers, according to Consumer's Union, which analyzed Federal Communications Commission data.
Cingular, which is in the process of adopting the AT&T brand, says it has invested $14 billion in the last two years to upgrade its networks, and the company now claims to have the fewest dropped calls of any U.S. wireless operator. CEO Stan Sigman restructured the company to give regional managers more autonomy to match competitors' promotions in their local markets, reversing subscriber losses. Complaints to the FCC fell 77 percent in 16 months.
Thanks to these improvements and its massive customer base -- because of its merger activities, Cingular is largest wireless carrier in the country with 58.7 million customers - the company has become the go-to carrier for a number of cool devices. It was the first to introduce the Motorola (Charts) RAZR in November 2004, and it recently launched Samsung's drooled-over Blackjack and SYNC phones exclusively in the United States.
But its biggest "get" to date unquestionably is the iPhone, set to launch in June. Sigman, a veteran of the Bell System, says he got a call at home from Steve Jobs two years ago; Jobs said he wanted to meet to discuss an idea for a phone. Sigman says Jobs was drawn to Cingular because of its size and its reputation as a good partner to device makers.
It didn't hurt that Sigman was willing to offer Apple (Charts) some special treatment: Cingular signed on to distribute the device without even seeing a prototype of the phone. "I had confidence in Steve that he would deliver on the vision he had," Sigman recalls. Sigman, in turn, sees Jobs' desire to work with Cingular as "an affirmation" of the turnaround the wireless company has executed. (When Sigman finally did see the phone, he says he was duly impressed: "I'm a man of few words, really, and the first time I saw the phone, all I could say was, 'wow.' It is so cool.")
Analysts say the iPhone is sure to boost Cingular sales but say its strongest competitor, Verizon (Charts), doesn't have too much to fear. Not everyone will want -- or can afford at $500 to $600 a pop -- an iPhone (despite what you might read in the tech press), and Apple isn't the only company unveiling cool devices. Look for Verizon, Sprint (Charts) and T-Mobile to start lining up their own exclusives with phones that might appeal to other segments of the phone-buying public.
Cingular, meanwhile, will have to provide pristine customer service and network quality for the iPhone. With a device as highly anticipated -- and hyped -- as Apple's new phone, customers are going to be hypersensitive to their user experiences. It would be a bad time for Cingular to fall back on its old ways. But apparently AT&T is confident enough in the Cingular network that it just announced a new set of calling plans that will allow customers to make or receive calls to other AT&T wireless or wireline phones without incurring additional wireline usage fees or using their wireless minutes.
Find this article at:
http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/18/technology/pluggedin_mehta_cingular.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2007011905
Truth or fiction - free iPhone service
Doesn't make sense?
Yes it does.
The iPhone is locked into Cingular NOT due to phone locking but because some not insignificant part of its functionality is ACTUALLY on Cingular's proprietary servers.
That is, once owning an iPhone with Cingular's service you're STUCK with Cingular's service until you want to discard that iPhone! Can't take the functionality with you if you leave!
As noted elsewhere, a little free heroin up front goes a long way to enhancing one's bottomline later on...
RE: Truth or fiction - free iPhone service
how about targeted advertising pushed to your device in exchange for free service?
A free ride for Cingular's iPhone users?
Friday, January 26, 2007
A free ride for Cingular's iPhone users?
Over at Tech Trader Daily, Eric Savitz valiantly tries to dispel a rumor that AT&T's (T) Cingular wireless company is going to give away service to users of the new Apple (APPL) iPhone that comes out in June. (Cingular is the exclusive distributor of the iPhone.)
Besides being untrue, the rumor makes no sense: Why would Cingular, after scoring a big coup in winning exclusive iPhone distribution, then give airtime away for free? Airtime is the only thing Cingular can make money on. It doesn't make money selling phones - in fact, Cingular probably is subsidizing the iPhone so that it doesn't cost consumers even more than the eye-popping $499 or $599. And there's certainly no profit to be had in providing customer service to the random iPhone user who can't figure out how to turn the thing on, or needs help when the device inexplicably seems to lock up. (You scoff, but I can assure you some users will need hand holding, no matter how intuitive Apple believes its phone is.)
Now, we do expect Cingular and Apple to team up on some special pricing plans tied specifically to the iPhone, perhaps an all-you-can-eat data package that is priced especially low to entice customers to play with (read: get addicted to) all the data features on the phone. You might even see Cingular throw in an introductory "free" month of data service for the iPhone.
But one of the big reasons Cingular wooed Apple so aggressively is that the carrier would like to start attracting a better quality customer. In the fourth qarter of last year, the carrier added more than two million net new customers, but as Katie Feherenbacher at Gigaom notes, a lot of those new customers were lower-end subscribers. If Cingular is serious about attracting high-end users, it probably won't be giving service away any time soon.
http://money.cnn.com/blogs/browser/index.html#116981443695200002
OT: Apple may soon introduce speedy mini-laptop
that prick Jobs is on a roll...
Apple may soon introduce speedy mini-laptop
Small portable computer would break usual mold by using flash memory, the same type used in most iPods, says analyst.
March 8 2007: 2:50 PM EST
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -- Apple may sell zippy notebook computers later this year that use the same type of fast memory as music players and digital cameras, driving down prices of hard-disk drives, an analyst said on Thursday.
The maker of the popular iPod music player and Macintosh computers hopes to introduce so-called flash memory in small computers known as subnotebooks in the second half of 2007, Shaw Wu, an analyst at American Technology Research who has a "buy" rating on Apple shares and does not own any stock, said in investor notes on Wednesday and Thursday.
A shift to flash memory in place of much slower hard-disk drives would eliminate one headache for consumers: lengthy start-up times when turning on computers.
Apple (Charts) of Cupertino, California, already uses flash memory in its iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle music players. Flash memory is lighter, uses less power and takes up less space than hard-disk drives.
Wu, who was among the first analysts to forecast the unveiling of Apple's iPhone music player/phone earlier this year, cited unnamed industry sources as the basis for his report.
"The time is right for the flash makers to make a move" as flash memory prices decline, Wu said by telephone. "Apple, from what we understand, is pretty much ready. The ball is in the flash vendors' court."
http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/08/technology/apple.reut/index.htm?postversion=2007030814
Apple's iPhone Slaps Palm
Tech Stock Update
Apple's iPhone Slaps Palm
By Scott Moritz
Senior Writer
3/9/2007 6:42 AM EST
URL: http://www.thestreet.com/newsanalysis/techstockupdate/10343354.html
Apple's (AAPL) iPhone already looks like a smashing success from a financial standpoint.
In the past week, with the device's launch still three weeks off, a few analysts have already raised their sales estimates.
Even industry skeptics think Apple's deft design hand, and consumers' growing allegiance to the iPod brand, will push the company past its target of 10 million iPhones sold over 18 months.
That's only a 1% sliver of a market now topping 1 billion mobile phones sold annually. But it's a pretty sweet slice when you consider that the phones will be selling at $500 to $600 apiece.
"I think they'll sell 10 million to 15 million in a year, and that's at least an additional $5 billion on their revenue line," says one Wall Street analyst who has no rating on Apple.
That will be especially huge "if they get margins like RIM (RIMM) ," he adds.
Analysts say most phone makers get fairly modest markups above the cost of producing the phones.
Manufacturers such as Motorola (MOT) and Nokia (NOK) get gross margins of 25% to 35% on the price they charge telcos for the phones.
But if some cost estimates are correct, Apple will be shattering that barrier by commanding 100% markups on its iPhone.
In January, tech manufacturing research shop iSuppli detailed the estimated cost of every chip component and the assembly expense for the iPhone.
For example, 4-gigabyte memory: $35; 8-gigabyte memory: $70; display screen: $33.50; manufacturing: $15.50. The grand total is $246 for the 4-gig-memory model and $280 for the 8-gig unit, according to iSuppli.
So how does Apple command such a huge premium?
"First, don't call it a phone," says Ovum analyst Roger Entner. "The carriers have destroyed the value of the phone. To most people, a phone means it's free. It's like calling your car a Yugo."
Phone companies routinely subsidize the purchase of a new customer's phone in exchange for a one- or two-year service contract. A hallmark of Motorola's woeful financial performance last year was how the once wildly desired Razr phone became a freebie to entice new users.
Apple plans to sell the iPhone in its own stores and let AT&T (T) sell it online. AT&T's exclusive deal with Apple probably prohibits any toying with the prices, but AT&T will no doubt offer its own rebates to rake in lucrative two-year contracts.
However, don't expect much give on price from Apple.
Apple famously dictates every aspect of its business, from its secretive product launch schedules to the terms of its retail prices. There are no Apple discount outlets, and even its refurbished gear gets resold at nearly new prices. And instead of cutting prices as products get older, the company discontinues models and unveils new ones.
One of the only outfits comparable to Apple in the wireless industry is Research In Motion. The BlackBerry maker has some of the highest margins in the phone business thanks to its command of the big ticket business segment.
Observers say the iPhone offers a direct challenge to RIM's hot new consumer device, the Pearl. But the BlackBerry business niche may not feel much pressure from Apple. The iPhone's OS X operating system and lack of basic office software makes it almost a pure consumer device.
But one outfit that sits squarely in Apple's path is Palm (PALM) . The Treo, an expensive handheld computer phone, had many loyal fans before sleeker smartphones, such as Motorola's Q and Samsung's BlackJack, started chipping away at the Palm phone.
Now, with the imminent arrival of the iPhone, Palm seems doomed, say analysts.
"Palm is shaking in their sandals," says Ovum's Entner.
I'm not sure which is funnier
-- http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/29/dvorak-apple-should-pull-the-plug-on-the-iphone/
Giggle.
And on Tuesday they announce The Deal
Why am I not surprised that Apple isn't simply resting on their laurels?
I wonder what ELSE they're gonna announce pre-June?
And post-June!?
RE: And on Tuesday they announce The Deal
RE: Apple says iPhone on target tfor June release but...
http://tinyurl.com/2axbef
See the related link especially.
The network IS the computer
== Ya want to develop iPhone applications?
==
== Well, go ahead!! You have EVERYTHING you need
== to do it already!
==
== Write your application using standard web interfaces
== with ALL the functionality running on your servers!
==
== Tada! No SDK needed!
It will be interesting to see how this...uh...develops.
================
That is to say, how do you prevent a wayward application from crashing your phone?
Why, you don't LET it run on your phone! It crashes, it crashes something ELSE!
Makes sense to me...no kidding.
================
A long time ago in a different lifetime a group of us had to have a heavy-database-using application run internationally on endusers' workstations with all the database(s) local to Virginia. The BIG problem was the bidirectional data traffic that had to traverse the oceans and allow their locally-run applications to have sufficiently fast reaction time to not upset some Very Important People.
The final solution was to say to them "Sorry, we're taking your applications away from you and running them on our servers over here on the East Coast of The States and the ONLY thing we're gonna send back and forth is the X-Window stuff to a dinky program (Hummingbird) running on your workstation".
Though I personally didn't like the overhead of the X stuff getting sent back and forth (especially mouse stuff, for example) the mere fact of the matter was the endusers were pleased as punch at the dramatic performance increase relative to the way it had been.
That's a problem with international crap - sometimes it takes a LONG time to send that data back and forth compared to in the same building.
Oh, yeah, scheduling downtime was an interesting problem, too - essentially the sun did not set on this company so there was a dinky Sunday window when things were quiescent enough not to upset those same Very Important People.
RE: The network IS the computer
In fairness, most Web 2.0 apps will either crash or simply not work on the majority of mobile browsers. As for Safari, some AJAX toolkits support it and some don't. Even then, we don't know whether Safari that the iPhone uses has the same DHTML/Javascript capabilities of the desktop version.
One thing we do know: you'll be on the "EDGE" of your seat waiting for your data to show up (AT&T's "Enhanced" Data Rates for GSM, that is).
Not a slam against the iPhone, really. I just don't think the masses are ready for much more than widgets when it comes to using web apps on their mobiles.
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
RE: The network IS the computer
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
RE: The network IS the computer IS the network...
Beersy bashing the hapless Treo??? W T F! Shocking! Almost as shocking as you finally admitting there are... issues... with the Treo 700p. You're learning, Beersy. Baby steps, but at least you've finally pulled your head out of the sand (or more accurately out of Palm's and PalmSource's a$$es).
In fairness, most Web 2.0 apps will either crash or simply not work on the majority of mobile browsers. As for Safari, some AJAX toolkits support it and some don't. Even then, we don't know whether Safari that the iPhone uses has the same DHTML/Javascript capabilities of the desktop version.
Do you actually think that Apple and AT&T give a damn whether or not lumpenproletariat developers like you are able to write applications that will work with the iPhone? Get serious. Profit-making in the cell phone business and in Apple's bogus little computer niche is entirely dependent on how tightly these companies can control (and squeeze) their serfs customers before they wake up, realize that they are being screwed and move on to greener pastures. The last thing Apple or the carriers want is to experience the kind of headaches that carriers selling devices based on Palm's wide-open architecture have to deal with on a daily basis. How much money do you think Sprint, Verizon etc. have wasted trying to support clueless end users whose devices keep crashing because they installed a crappy freeware "program" some fat, pimply-faced 14 year-old Greek kid wrote during his recess with a warez copy of PDA Toolbox?
Steve Jobs may be a smug, smarmy piece of sh*t, but in this case, he is right: consumers are too stupid to be trusted to not fcuk up their phones if you give them the chance. Of course, in some ways this is all academic. The iPhone looks to be shipping with a fairly complete suite of applications, so typical users probably will have no use for other applications. He11, even most PalmOS Treos sold are left either as is or have no more than 1 or 2 applications added. The iPhone merely gives The Masses what His Steveness knows is good enough for them. And anything that might actually be lacking out of the box will no doubt be available for sale from Apple/AT&T Real Soon Now. Svengali Steve ain't no fool...
Locked-down devices are the future, Bubba. You might as well get used it now.
One thing we do know: you'll be on the "EDGE" of your seat waiting for your data to show up (AT&T's "Enhanced" Data Rates for GSM, that is).
Who cares of the data is slow and hideously expensive? The iPhone is shiny! Mmmmmmmmmmm... shiny! We wants it, we needs it. Must have the Precious (iPhone)!
Not a slam against the iPhone, really. I just don't think the masses are ready for much more than widgets when it comes to using web apps on their mobiles.
Jeff Hawkins is betting you're wrong. Dead wrong.
TVoR
RE: The network IS the computer IS the network IS the computer
"The chance" in this case is not bad third-party apps, it's aging old Garnet. A new, stable OS would go a long way toward combating consumer stupidity. Hopefully Palm are working on putting their new Linux OS on their handheld devices. Fast. (More likely it's a long ways off, but a man can dream...)
Locked-down devices are the future, Bubba. You might as well get used it now.
No they're not. They'll continue to co-exist with open devices and platforms. And they might even lose some ground, if companies like Palm and MS can come up with new ways to push mobile software. As you said, typical users don't usually install any extra apps. The question is why? I think it's mainly because the experience of hunting the net, downloading the software and especially syncing sucks. Until the process of downloading, installing and removing applications from devices is as brain-dead simple as, say, downloading songs from iTunes, it'll never take off.
On that point, if Apple were to open up the iPhone (or its successors), iTunes gives them the perfect platform to sell mobile software and make the process as simple as it should be. Of course it's unlikely they'd ever do so... but then, who thought they'd align themselves with an "orifice" - Jobs-speak for "carrier"?
Open devices will always have a future, and if someone figures out how to make it simple for the Great Unwashed then they'll likely become the norm.
So ner. :P
Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650 ---> Crimson Treo 680
RE: The network IS the computer
Is PalmOS "protected" - that is, has system/user space/permissions split off from one another?
Linux certainly is (er...can be(*)).
If each application is in user mode then its crash theoretically effects only that "user" and not the system as a whole.
==============
(*) In the Good Ol' Days under early Unix there were a number of "users" other than root that controlled various parts of the core operating system environment - users like "etc" and "bin" and "local" - all just JoeBlow "users" with no special powers OTHER than the fact that each of them owned something key w.r.t. the system - for examples, the password files, special locations for added software (and the software itself), etc.
Due to laziness (or simply bad design due to any number of reasons) the Unix world has dramatically changed "since then" - now root owns just about everything and is required to own just about everything - and a lot of those same requirements have migrated over to various Linux implementations.
But it doesn't HAVE to be that way.
If someone is pruning down Linux to run on "small devices" and has the mandate to do it right, one can re-establish those walls between superuser powers and JoeBlow NoPower.
That is, Apple's fears of nonApple software crashing the phone (obviously a very real and valid fear in the PalmOS environment) dissipate almost entirely if that system software is setup up "right" - and I'd expect Linux-based phones to have made a least a LITTLE effort at "doing it right".
RE: The network IS the computer
Is PalmOS "protected" - that is, has system/user space/permissions split off from one another?
Not very well. The most important level of protection that it lacks (from a stability more than a security standpoint) is running applications in their own protected memory space so that if a processor task for your app dies the death it can't take the system processes down with it. And yeah, that's where the Linux kernel will come into play in the new Palm OSes (the one for Foleo and the one for the smartphones).
Jobs either knows that the OSX running on the iPhone is vulnerable to instability from improperly written applications (which shouldn't really be the case) or more likely he's just panicked that someone might install something that doesn't jive with his perfect-and-whole vision of the iPhone and offend its crystalline aesthetic.
The problem is that he's created this expectation that iPhone applications will "just work" whereas anyone who tries to use a Safari application on the iPhone will find it banging their head against the laws of physics repeatedly. You can't make an application "just work" if the service on which it depends for all of its data is, by the carriers own admission, a "best effort" in terms of quality. Third party apps will have no local storage on the device so if you're inside a big office building, riding the subway or sitting in one of AT&T's many many dead spots your application won't run. Worse, if you were in the middle of doing something with it you won't know what state your data will be when you eventually come back onto the network. Even in the best of coverage situations, EDGE will make lags like the occasional ones that 700p users experience occur every time you touch the screen for more data in a Safari app.
Of course, not everyone cares about data applications. Some would just like to play a cool game that uses all the iPhone's accelerated 3D graphics goodness. Good luck creating a game like that without any graphics APIs. It's Sudoku and tic-tac-toe for you, iPhone boy.
It's great that the iPhone will have better support for AJAX applications. I really appreciate that capability on the current crop of Nokia devices and it would be disappointing if Apple wasn't up to the state of the art given that it depends totally on its browser for any type of user customization. But contrary to what was stated above, locked down devices are *not* the future. Even if their bold sales predictions are exceeded, Apple is still a small fish in this game--much smaller in the carrier's eyes with yesterday's news. The carriers are seeing their revenues from feature phone as well as smartphone applications ramp up very quickly these days. It'll hit $9B by the end of this year and total $66B over the next five years, according to this study: http://tinyurl.com/2vhup9 Oh yeah, and that's just for *enterprise* applications. Then there are game downloads. There were 38M game downloads *a month* in 2005 in the US alone. That will rise to 134M a month by 2010. And gee, I wonder if they play games in other parts of the world?
Apple is missing a huge boat that its carrier partners are fully planning to be on. It will be interesting to see how this development (or lack thereof) effects Apple's future carrier deals. Hope Steve doesn't end up on the wrong end of some of those "orifices" he had finally decided he should be cozying up to.
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
RE: The network IS the computer
David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog
RE: The network IS...
Is PalmOS "protected" - that is, has system/user space/permissions split off from one another?
Apps aren't (which is why poorly written apps crash the devices with such aplomb.) This was supposed to be one of the improvements of PalmLinux (over Cobalt and PalmOS 5)
TVoR
Colligan Laughs Off iPhone Competition
Colligan Laughs Off iPhone Competition
Posted By: Ryan on Monday, November 20, 2006 1:29:45 PM
Responding to questions from New York Times correspondent John Markoff at a Churchill Club breakfast gathering Thursday morning, Colligan laughed off the idea that any company -- including the wildly popular Apple Computer -- could easily win customers in the finicky smart-phone sector.
"We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone," he said. "PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in.'"
RE: Colligan Laughs Off iPhone Competition
ps: I grabbed up one of the last Fossil FX2008 on ebay (still can't find them for $.99 Mike) and I have a supply of new Vx and C3 Palms so to hell with all of it.
Gary
talestuff.com
Tech Center Labs
AT&T to cut the price of Apple's new iPhone
April 29, 2008, 5:23 pm
AT&T to cut the price of Apple's new iPhone
By Scott Moritz, writer
AT&T (T) is planning to put some extra shine on the even sleeker new Apple (AAPL) iPhone.
When the 3G iPhone is introduced this summer, AT&T, the exclusive U.S. iPhone sales partner with Apple, will cut the price by as much as $200, according to a person familiar with the strategy.
http://techland.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/04/29/att-to-cut-the-price-of-apples-new-iphone/
RE: AT&T to cut the price of Apple's new iPhone
I'd like to see Palm beat that - really, no kidding, I would.
RE: AT&T to cut the price of Apple's new iPhone
So, I think Apple's going to try to hone in on the $200 and $400 pricepoints. Sort of like iPod Shuffle/Nano on the low end and Touch/Classic on the high end.
Palm continues to drag their feet and cannot even get the 800w out in a timely manner. I'm most curious, however, to see what (if anything) Palm does to follow on the success of the Centro. I predict more colors & price cuts and nothing in the way of new features.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p
RE: AT&T to cut the price of Apple's new iPhone
And there will be a special Sprint bundle: If you take a Centro *and* a Redfly, Palm will PAY you $200!
Comparison shot of new 8.9' LCD Asus EEE 900 w/ Palm Centro
It'd also be interesting to see a keyboard and FF size comparison between the EEE 900, the 10" EEE coming soon, and the Fooleo.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p
Latest Comments
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iPhone!
Also Apple is selling games for the iPod at a fixed $4.99. Some of these games are on Palm OS for more than $10!
Palm m125 > Palm Zire 71 > Tapwave Zodiac 1 > Palm Zire 72 > Sharp Zaurus SL-C1000 + 4gb MicroDrive + Palm Tungsten T|3 (1100mah)
My T|3 is too [i]sexy[/i] for me.