Cingular cell phone service - iPhone the 21st Century Edsel

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iPhone the 21st Century Edsel

Mark Crispin

2007-09-09, 12:33 pm

50 years ago, Ford Motor Company came out with the Edsel, a product that
became famous as a massive commercial failure.

The Edsel was designed to fill a marketing niche, rather than a specific
need or capability. So is the iPhone (in this case, the fanboys who have
to have the latest toy).

The Edsel was an outstanding design with a badly flawed implementation.
So is the iPhone (no 3G, low-resolution screen, no third-party apps or
SDK, poor keyboard, locked, ...)

The Edsel was more expensive than alternatives. So is the iPhone.

To see the future of the iPhone, we only have to look at what became of
the Edsel. It was manufacturered for only two years before it was taken
out of its misery; and it now sells for premium prices on the collector's
market.

This last may be a reason to buy an iPhone; you intend to sell it NIB some
years down the line for big bucks. Be careful, though. People thought
that Newtons had great investment potential too but they remain a
dime-a-dozen on eBay.

-- Mark --

http://panda.com/mrc
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.

John A. Weeks III

2007-09-09, 3:33 pm

In article <alpine.OSX.0.9999.0709090938030.2342@pangtzu.panda.com>,
Mark Crispin <mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU> wrote:

> To see the future of the iPhone, we only have to look at what became of
> the Edsel. It was manufacturered for only two years before it was taken
> out of its misery; and it now sells for premium prices on the collector's
> market.

Are you talking about the Apple iPhone? If so, you must be from
a different planet or living in a cave. The iPhone has been a
massive success. They had a million units sold in the first month.
That is amazing numbers for a first of a kind product from a company
that never sold a single cell phone before the iPhone.

Future iPhones will have more horsepower, more features, and a
developers API. Remember, this is the first cell phone that Apple
has put on the market. The Edsel, in contrast, came 50 years after
Ford started selling cars. It was not a first time effort. Ford
should have known better. Apple is just getting started.

-john-

--
====================
====================
====================
==========
John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708 john@johnweeks.com
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
====================
====================
====================
==========

George Kerby

2007-09-09, 3:33 pm

On 9/9/07 12:51 PM, in article
john-4F23A7.12510709092007@sn-radius.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net, "John A. Weeks
III" <john@johnweeks.com> wrote:

> In article <alpine.OSX.0.9999.0709090938030.2342@pangtzu.panda.com>,
> Mark Crispin <mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU> wrote:
>
>
> Are you talking about the Apple iPhone? If so, you must be from
> a different planet or living in a cave.

Actually, he has been in time warp for the past 50+ years. He finally had to
pull over to find some leaded gasoline for that Edsel that is transporting
him in the ether.

zara

2007-09-09, 3:33 pm

"John A. Weeks III" <john@johnweeks.com> wrote in message
news:john-4F23A7.12510709092007@sn-radius.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net...
> In article <alpine.OSX.0.9999.0709090938030.2342@pangtzu.panda.com>,
> Mark Crispin <mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU> wrote:
>
>
> Are you talking about the Apple iPhone? If so, you must be from
> a different planet or living in a cave. The iPhone has been a
> massive success. They had a million units sold in the first month.
> That is amazing numbers for a first of a kind product from a company
> that never sold a single cell phone before the iPhone.

They produced four million ,with the expectation they would be sold out
immediatly. They are still holding more than three million.

4phun

2007-09-09, 3:33 pm

Well if they have three million they may have a least one left when my
Verizon contract is up in October. I am out of here with all of my
family as I switch to the very interesting iPhone at the $400 price
level. I have a LG VX9800 that I have used for several years after a
variety of smart phones that sort of worked. The screen of the VX9800
though sharp is too small IMHO. Also I am very angry at the greedy
decisions of Verizon to cripple any decent phone that they carry.
These are just two of the reasons to join the churn leaving Verizion.

On Sep 9, 2:51 pm, "zara" <hed...@outdoorworld.com> wrote:

>
> They produced four million ,with the expectation they would be sold out
> immediatly. They are still holding more than three million.

zara

2007-09-09, 10:33 pm

"George Kerby" < ghost_topper@hotmail
.com> wrote in message
news:C309AA15. 39C4F%ghost_topper@h
otmail.com...
>
>
>
> On 9/9/07 12:51 PM, in article
> john-4F23A7.12510709092007@sn-radius.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net, "John A.
> Weeks
> III" <john@johnweeks.com> wrote:
>
>
> Actually, he has been in time warp for the past 50+ years. He finally had
> to
> pull over to find some leaded gasoline for that Edsel that is transporting
> him in the ether.

Why don't you drink some leaded gas, Jackass?

karlkrandall@sbcglobal.net

2007-09-09, 10:33 pm

On Sun, 9 Sep 2007 09:52:19 -0700, Mark Crispin
<mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU> wrote:

>50 years ago, Ford Motor Company came out with the Edsel, a product that
>became famous as a massive commercial failure.
>

I don't recall the Edsel selling 1 million in the first 3 months. I
recall everyone saying how ugly it was, as opposed to how perfectly
styled the iPhone is.

The Edsel was named after an individual, Apple does not have
a phone called the "Steve".

skip

2007-09-09, 10:33 pm

karlkrandall@sbcglob
al.net wrote in news:vl39e3p6cvpek5l
5ho0tsg6tb78db9mfu8
@4ax.com:

> On Sun, 9 Sep 2007 09:52:19 -0700, Mark Crispin
> <mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU> wrote:
>
>
> I don't recall the Edsel selling 1 million in the first 3 months. I
> recall everyone saying how ugly it was, as opposed to how perfectly
> styled the iPhone is.
>
> The Edsel was named after an individual, Apple does not have
> a phone called the "Steve".
>

I loved the car I don't know why it failed.

zara

2007-09-09, 10:33 pm

zara

2007-09-09, 10:33 pm

< karlkrandall@sbcglob
al.net> wrote in message
news:vl39e3p6cvpek5l
5ho0tsg6tb78db9mfu8@
4ax.com...
> On Sun, 9 Sep 2007 09:52:19 -0700, Mark Crispin
> <mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU> wrote:
>
>
> I don't recall the Edsel selling 1 million in the first 3 months. I
> recall everyone saying how ugly it was, as opposed to how perfectly
> styled the iPhone is.
>
> The Edsel was named after an individual, Apple does not have
> a phone called the "Steve".

They should call it the "handjobs".

Mitch

2007-09-09, 10:33 pm

In article <alpine.OSX.0.9999.0709090938030.2342@pangtzu.panda.com>,
Mark Crispin <mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU> wrote:

> 50 years ago, Ford Motor Company came out with the Edsel, a product that
> became famous as a massive commercial failure.
>
> The Edsel was designed to fill a marketing niche, rather than a specific
> need or capability. So is the iPhone (in this case, the fanboys who have
> to have the latest toy).
Mischaracterization;
the iPhone is Apple's attempt to do a combination
device better than others have done them. As such, it's evolutionary
and designed to fit existing markets.
The point is defeated entirely.

> The Edsel was an outstanding design with a badly flawed implementation.
> So is the iPhone (no 3G, low-resolution screen, no third-party apps or
> SDK, poor keyboard, locked, ...)
iPhone appears to be an outstanding design with an outstanding
implementation. It has the highest res of all phones, seems to have a
good keyboard, 3G isn't a specific need. That it is locked to just one
carrier is an economic issue, and means nothing at all to many users!

> The Edsel was more expensive than alternatives. So is the iPhone.
Wrong. Many of it's competitors are more expensive. Many are less. But
none do exactly what it does, so it's a silly condemnation.

> To see the future of the iPhone, we only have to look at what became of
> the Edsel. It was manufacturered for only two years before it was taken
> out of its misery; and it now sells for premium prices on the collector's
> market.
That would be insanely stupid even if all of the rest of your argument
was right on target. Are you suggesting product failures are products
that, after a while, stop getting made or sold?

> This last may be a reason to buy an iPhone; you intend to sell it NIB some
> years down the line for big bucks. Be careful, though. People thought
> that Newtons had great investment potential too but they remain a
> dime-a-dozen on eBay.
Also stupid; Newtons are highly prized by collectors and others because
they were great products. See the difference? Commercial faiilure is
often different from product design failure.
It seems you have a particular problem accepting the idea that some
companies make different products. If that's all this is, then shut up
and find a hole someplace to die in.
If you have INTELLIGENT things to say about products, figure out those
things first. Development problems, design problems, and economic
problems are different things -- you can't just pick out any famous
failure from the past and claim it's the fate of a product that you
(and almost you alone) think is a bad one.

All you prove is that you are an idiot.

Mitch

2007-09-09, 10:33 pm

Bill Gates

2007-09-10, 4:33 am

This sums it up quite well:

Apple's price cutting practice, while heavily criticised by the press,
is not dissimilar to others in the IT industry. The NY Times put the
price drop in context: Motorola, for instance, introduced the ultra-thin
Razr phone for $499 with a two-year service contract in early 2005. Six
months later, Motorola realized it had a hit on its hands and dropped
the price to $199 in an effort to aim at more mainstream buyers. By the
end of 2005, the price was $99.

At $599 the iPhone was one of the most expensive smart phones on the
market. More expensive than a Treo, and more expensive than a
Blackberry. At $399 however it's one of the least expensive. That,
coupled with the fact that the iPhone -- with its very high resolution,
huge screen, and advanced 3D graphics -- makes other phones look like
bricks, and that means that Apple is going to have a runaway success on
its hands.

---

I think the most amazing thing about the iPhone is the screen, it's FAR
better than any computer or hand held device out there, and now at $399
for a great IMAP mail client, full web browser, it's going to roll over
any Microsoft CE product like a steamroller. Bye bye MS with the iPhone.

Todd Allcock

2007-09-10, 12:33 pm

At 09 Sep 2007 22:40:18 -0600 Bill Gates/Oxford/Gene Jones/et al
wrote:
> This sums it up quite well:
>
> Apple's price cutting practice, while heavily criticised by the
press,
> is not dissimilar to others in the IT industry. The NY Times put
> the price drop in context: Motorola, for instance, introduced the
> ultra-thin Razr phone for $499 with a two-year service contract in
> early 2005. Six months later, Motorola realized it had a hit on its
> hands and dropped the price to $199 in an effort to aim at more
> mainstream buyers. By the end of 2005, the price was $99.

True. However, this brings up an excellent point. Motorola, to this
day, hasn't topped the success of the RAZR. Like the iPhone, it was
a new, head-turning, outstanding, design, which price cuts turned
into a "commodity" item.

This not only alienates the early adopters (believe me- it did with
early RAZR buyers!) but it also hurts sales of similar looking but
more featured products, as Motorola has painfully discovered.

If the iPhone is the "ultimate" phone, as you often post, and
possibly even believe, what incentive is there to go "up the line" to
future higher end versions? If this phone was truly marketable at
$599, the solution to "going for it" would've been to release a less
featured version at a lower price point, rather than abandon the
$500+ point "forever" which is what they essentially did- Steve drew
a line in the sand with the price cut last week- he essentially said
the phone in an iPhone is only worth $99 more than a similarly
equipped iPod. The market will expect him to stick to that.

> I think the most amazing thing about the iPhone is the screen, it's
> FAR better than any computer or hand held device out there, and now
> at $399 for a great IMAP mail client, full web browser, it's going
> to roll over any Microsoft CE product like a steamroller. Bye bye
> MS with the iPhone.

Here we go again, Oxy. Lower-end CE products can be had for $99 or
less- like a T-Mo Dash, Moto Q or AT&T's Blackjack. Sure they are
less featured, but they handle e-mail, web, media, etc. acceptably
well, particularly at their price points.

Where the iPhone may "hurt" WinMo is where it deserves to be hurt-
the people who were buying "business class" devices for "consumer" use,

because no comparable consumer device was available. They may have
wanted better e-mail support than a typical "music phone" offered,
and jumped all the way to, say, a PPC phone to get it. Apple filled
a niche with iPhone that was unserved before- a high-end consumer
media phone with web and e-mail. Prior to it's launch, some
consumers had to "overbuy" to get that functionality.

But once again you present your tired flawed argument- that any one
device, no matter how well designed, can say "bye bye" to a range of
products aimed at other markets. It's like saying the Toyota Prius
is so well designed it will say "bye bye" to motocycles and pick-up
trucks.

At $399 iPhone won't say "bye bye" to $0-$99 smartphones for price-
sensitive buyers, and it won't say "bye bye" to Blackberries and
Treos for business users due to it's "missing" features. It WILL
however, steal plenty of market share from similarly priced RIM and
WinMo phones, as buyers who previously bought them for the "wrong"
reasons can now choose iPhones.

--

"I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures
or double as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for
all the bells and whistles, but I could communicate better with
ACTUAL bells and whistles." -Bill Maher 9/25/2003

Mark Crispin

2007-09-10, 12:33 pm

On Sun, 9 Sep 2007, Mitch wrote:
> Mischaracterization;
the iPhone is Apple's attempt to do a combination
> device better than others have done them. As such, it's evolutionary
> and designed to fit existing markets.

It's also a failure. It's a solution in search of a problem.

Where's the market after all the fanboys have bought one.

> iPhone appears to be an outstanding design with an outstanding
> implementation. It has the highest res of all phones,

All you're saying, in effect, is "for many times the price, the iPhone is
less inadequate for browsing the web than other phones."

With one more diagonal inch it could have FOUR TIMES as many pixels.
That would permit web browsing without all the zooming in and out that has
to be done on the iPhone.

> seems to have a
> good keyboard,

The Blackberry crowd doesn't think so. The reports are coming in of
business users who tried iPhone and went back to Blackberry.

> 3G isn't a specific need.

That's like saying that "a hard drive isn't a specific need, everything
you need is on floppy (Mac 128K) or optical disk (first NeXT cube)." The
fanboys were wrong when they said that then, and they are wrong now.

> That it is locked to just one
> carrier is an economic issue, and means nothing at all to many users!

Tell that to the users who discover that T-Mobile has much lower rates
than AT&T and find that they can't switch.

That that to the international travellers who buy a local prepay SIM card
overseas.

> Wrong. Many of it's competitors are more expensive. Many are less. But
> none do exactly what it does, so it's a silly condemnation.

Nobody else made a car with the same cosmetics as an Edsel. That doesn't
make the comparison irrelevant.

The iPhone purports to be a phone. It is not a great phone, but it seems
to work as well as any cheap non-3G GSM phone. Too bad that it costs so
much more.

The iPhone purports to be a portable Internet access device. Too bad that
the screen resolution is so small so you are forced to use the zoom. Too
bad that you are stuck with Safari and can't use far superior choices such
as Firefox. Too bad that you can't download and run third-party apps.
Too bad there's no SDK to permit you to build your own apps.

Because of its limitations, the iPhone isn't a handheld computer. It's
more like a PDA. But it's not a particularly good PDA, especially for
enterprise users who need sync to their corporate system.

> That would be insanely stupid even if all of the rest of your argument
> was right on target. Are you suggesting product failures are products
> that, after a while, stop getting made or sold?

Product failures are product lines that die without a successor. They are
evolutionary dead ends.

The Newton is an example; Apple's venture into the PDA market failed even
though it used a lot of technology from Sharp (which is still very much in
the PDA market).

NeXT was a product failure, even though some of its software got salvaged
and incorporated into Mac OS X. A similar fate befell Lisa.

Ricochet was a product failure, even though its zombie hangs on in Denver.
People who had it loved it. Technically, it was far superior to CDPD
which at the time was the only alternative. It still died.

The HP-35, on the other hand, is not a product failure even though it has
been decades since the last HP-35 was manufactured. It has many
successors (some more successful than others) that continue to this day.

DOS and MacOS are not product failures either; although themselves dead,
they were replaced in an evolutionary process by NT and Mac OS X. Their
users see (correctly) a "newer, better" Windows and a "new, better" Mac
that run all their familiar old software.

> Also stupid; Newtons are highly prized by collectors and others because
> they were great products. See the difference? Commercial faiilure is
> often different from product design failure.

Newtons are NOT "highly prized by collectors". Take a look at prices on
eBay before you make such verifiably false assumptions.

Maybe you highly prize Newtons for your collection. If so, I'll sell you
a complete MP100 box set with extra accessories (modem, memory card) that
for the low low price of $500. Get it while it's hot, fanboy!

> It seems you have a particular problem accepting the idea that some
> companies make different products. If that's all this is, then shut up
> and find a hole someplace to die in.

I see that I touched a fanboy nerve. Good.

> If you have INTELLIGENT things to say about products, figure out those
> things first.

Your definition of "intelligent" seems to be fanboy worship. The iPhone
has numerous technology and market problems.

Nothing about iPhone technology is excellent. It is a combination of a
ecletic set of mediocrities. "It's a better web browser than other
phones", but it isn't a particularly great phone. "It's a smaller and
cheaper web browser than a laptop", but it does much less and has a tiny
screen resolution.

The target market for the iPhone are fanboys who go for the cool design
and overlook the technological deficiencies. The suits looked at iPhone
and gone back to Blackberry. Although there certainly are fangirls, most
women look at the iPhone and see an expensive toy.

Now we have international travellers who discover that they better not
bring their iPhone for incoming calls (the way you can for a NORMAL phone)
if they don't want to be hit with thousands of dollars of GPRS roaming
charges due to background fetching of email.

> All you prove is that you are an idiot.

In the language of fanboys, "idiot" means "anyone who does not drink Steve
Jobs' Kool-Aid."

I will thoroughly enjoy the wails of anguish when iPhone dies. It will be
sooner rather than later. iPod Touch is clearly the direction of that
product line. As a product, iPod Touch makes much more sense.

iPhone is destined to go down as an oddball that was a phone too, but more
expensive and with less memory.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Oxford

2007-09-10, 12:33 pm

Todd Allcock < elecconnec@AmericaOn
Line.com> wrote:

> press,
>
> True. However, this brings up an excellent point. Motorola, to this
> day, hasn't topped the success of the RAZR. Like the iPhone, it was
> a new, head-turning, outstanding, design, which price cuts turned
> into a "commodity" item.

But you are forgetting Motorola doesn't have the resources of Apple to
"out innovate" themselves. They are a wandering handset maker now, they
lost their vision years ago.

> This not only alienates the early adopters (believe me- it did with
> early RAZR buyers!) but it also hurts sales of similar looking but
> more featured products, as Motorola has painfully discovered.

Yes, but MOT doesn't have a loyal following such as Apple. Every one of
those first million iPhones went into the hands of people that
understand modern technology, require the best in their lives and have
an interest in making Apple even more successful.

> If the iPhone is the "ultimate" phone, as you often post, and
> possibly even believe, what incentive is there to go "up the line" to
> future higher end versions? If this phone was truly marketable at
> $599, the solution to "going for it" would've been to release a less
> featured version at a lower price point, rather than abandon the
> $500+ point "forever" which is what they essentially did-

It simply opens up room for the $499 16GB model and 3G for people that
live in those markets that 3G actually works, say around Nov 12th? My
4GB's now have more features than when I bought them, they will have
more features again in 2-3 weeks, etc, etc... I think you are forgetting
that OSX is under the hood of these things, so basically anything OSX
can run, the iPhone can run. Think about it...

MOT, Nokia, RIM have no easy way to do this, they are pretty much stuck
with the hardware in place. Apple iPhone owners aren't.

> Steve drew
> a line in the sand with the price cut last week- he essentially said
> the phone in an iPhone is only worth $99 more than a similarly
> equipped iPod. The market will expect him to stick to that.

Sure, and last time I checked the 8GB iPod Touch was selling for $299,
about $99 more than the iPhone, but there is also the 16GB model of the
iPod Touch, so what is missing? can you guess?

>
> Here we go again, Oxy. Lower-end CE products can be had for $99 or
> less- like a T-Mo Dash, Moto Q or AT&T's Blackjack. Sure they are
> less featured, but they handle e-mail, web, media, etc. acceptably
> well, particularly at their price points.

But they don't have the quality screen, that's probably the most amazing
thing about the iPhone, nobody has it at this price point. Nor the iPod,
nor the Multi-touch interface, WiFi, etc...

> Where the iPhone may "hurt" WinMo is where it deserves to be hurt-
> the people who were buying "business class" devices for "consumer" use,

I really don't see any separation between the two markets. I say, let
the best phone "win" and currently the iPhone is the best in the
consumer space if you want to call it that, and in business, it's
already doing freaky things like this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX_6yIO2bR8

Once the SDK is ready for the iPhone, watch out...

> because no comparable consumer device was available. They may have
> wanted better e-mail support than a typical "music phone" offered,
> and jumped all the way to, say, a PPC phone to get it. Apple filled
> a niche with iPhone that was unserved before- a high-end consumer
> media phone with web and e-mail. Prior to it's launch, some
> consumers had to "overbuy" to get that functionality.

yes, and I agree.

> But once again you present your tired flawed argument- that any one
> device, no matter how well designed, can say "bye bye" to a range of
> products aimed at other markets. It's like saying the Toyota Prius
> is so well designed it will say "bye bye" to motocycles and pick-up
> trucks.

I just look at Apple's storied history of wiping out entire markets and
placing their STAMP on the new one. Everyone uses a Mac today, and sure
"most" people use the cheap MS clone of the Mac, but if there wasn't a
Mac, people would still be using DOS, same with the Laser Printer, same
with Wireless, same with the iPod, etc, etc.

> At $399 iPhone won't say "bye bye" to $0-$99 smartphones for price-
> sensitive buyers, and it won't say "bye bye" to Blackberries and
> Treos for business users due to it's "missing" features. It WILL
> however, steal plenty of market share from similarly priced RIM and
> WinMo phones, as buyers who previously bought them for the "wrong"
> reasons can now choose iPhones.

Ah, but you aren't looking far enough forward... The iPod in 2001 only
came in White, Black and White Screen for $399, now look at the iPod
Touch a mere 6 years later. What happened? Full color, touch screen, 8GB
of flash, WiFi, a browser, coverflow, etc, etc... for $99 less.

The exact same thing will happen with the iPhone... you'll have iPhone
nanos, an entire "iPhone" in an ear piece... during the next 6 years.

Sit by the sidelines, or join in the fun Todd.

-

Oxford

2007-09-10, 3:33 pm

Mark Crispin <mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU> wrote:

>
> It's also a failure. It's a solution in search of a problem.
>
> Where's the market after all the fanboys have bought one.

1,000,000 sold as of yesterday, fastest selling Cell Phone in the
HISTORY of cell phones. And you were saying?

Sorry Mark, game is already over, the iPhone will be come the MAIN phone
people use on the planet for the next 50ish years. There is NOTHING your
pea-sized brain can do about it.

>
> All you're saying, in effect, is "for many times the price, the iPhone is
> less inadequate for browsing the web than other phones."
>
> With one more diagonal inch it could have FOUR TIMES as many pixels.
> That would permit web browsing without all the zooming in and out that has
> to be done on the iPhone.

Yes, and make it heavy and bulky, and EXPENSIVE. The iPhone right now is
the best balance of features, price, battery life and ease of use. None
of those other phones stand a chance now that the iPhone is $399.

>
> The Blackberry crowd doesn't think so. The reports are coming in of
> business users who tried iPhone and went back to Blackberry.

Sure, but there will be plenty of Blackberry bluetooth clone keyboards
in the coming months. Blackberry users will switch to the iPhone in
droves once this happens. Until then, iPhone users will pass them by.

>
> That's like saying that "a hard drive isn't a specific need, everything
> you need is on floppy (Mac 128K) or optical disk (first NeXT cube)." The
> fanboys were wrong when they said that then, and they are wrong now.

But you clearly don't understand that 3G is not even close to being in
all markets, plus it kills battery life. No need for that. Plus you seem
to be forgetting that the iPhone has full WiFi, so it's very rare you
are going to be using super slow 3G, you'll want to be on normal WiFi
90% of your waking day.

>
> Tell that to the users who discover that T-Mobile has much lower rates
> than AT&T and find that they can't switch.

Why can't you switch? That seems odd? there are PLENTY of companies that
will unlock your iPhone, here is just one.

http://www.iphonesimfree.com/cgi-bi...ine.pl?page=buy

Gosh, Mark do you ever get out of the house?

> That that to the international travellers who buy a local prepay SIM card
> overseas.

Not a problem see above, or wait for the big announcement next month.
Geeeze!

>
> Nobody else made a car with the same cosmetics as an Edsel. That doesn't
> make the comparison irrelevant.
>
> The iPhone purports to be a phone. It is not a great phone, but it seems
> to work as well as any cheap non-3G GSM phone. Too bad that it costs so
> much more.

It's a WONDERFUL phone, have you use one yet? It appears not. Plus it
has so many more features than even the best smartphones so it makes it
a no brainer as the best phone to buy if you want a quality screen,
extremely long battery life, huge screen, MULTI touch screen, (not the
cheap touch screens that are on some phones) plus you have an iPod, full
video movie player, Google Maps done by Apple! Not in an browser, etc,
etc.

> The iPhone purports to be a portable Internet access device. Too bad that
> the screen resolution is so small so you are forced to use the zoom. Too
> bad that you are stuck with Safari and can't use far superior choices such
> as Firefox. Too bad that you can't download and run third-party apps.
> Too bad there's no SDK to permit you to build your own apps.

The screen resolution is better than any phone currently being sold, and
WebKit makes browsing extremely clear. I've seen a lot of screens in my
life, but never 3, 4 point text that is very easy to read. It's a wonder
of the world, NO other phone is even close to this.

> Because of its limitations, the iPhone isn't a handheld computer. It's
> more like a PDA. But it's not a particularly good PDA, especially for
> enterprise users who need sync to their corporate system.

Sure it is, you just don't have high enough demands to understand it.

>
> Product failures are product lines that die without a successor. They are
> evolutionary dead ends.

Yes, and look at what is coming up next month. OSX Leopard! That will be
5-8 years ahead of Vista, and don't you think they'll be more iPhone
features added? Yep!

> The Newton is an example; Apple's venture into the PDA market failed even
> though it used a lot of technology from Sharp (which is still very much in
> the PDA market).

Ah, but the Newton wasn't created by the Apple that is in business now,
that company died in 1996, Mark you sure don't keep up with history do
you? Apple CREATED the first PDA and Steve killed it. Learn your
history, or don't comment.

> NeXT was a product failure, even though some of its software got salvaged
> and incorporated into Mac OS X. A similar fate befell Lisa.

Yes, but it created the "world wide web", perhaps you've heard of it?
That's a hell of a success! World changing on the order of the iPhone.
(almost) Ah, NeXTSTEP is OSX, not just "parts"... it's the same OS under
the hood.

Steve killed the Lisa with the Mac, the Lisa was the first successful
GUI based machine, and the Mac rode it onto greatness.

> Ricochet was a product failure, even though its zombie hangs on in Denver.
> People who had it loved it. Technically, it was far superior to CDPD
> which at the time was the only alternative. It still died.

Yes, Richochet never had Apple's approval, so it had no future. I see
where Apple might buy part of the Radio Spectrum in today's news. Kinda
cool.

> The HP-35, on the other hand, is not a product failure even though it has
> been decades since the last HP-35 was manufactured. It has many
> successors (some more successful than others) that continue to this day.

I still use RPN, and the HP 12C. Great stuff.

> DOS and MacOS are not product failures either; although themselves dead,
> they were replaced in an evolutionary process by NT and Mac OS X. Their
> users see (correctly) a "newer, better" Windows and a "new, better" Mac
> that run all their familiar old software.

Product "failures" is a little strong, kinda like saying IMAP failed
against POP. :) They were stepping stones, nothing more.

>
> Newtons are NOT "highly prized by collectors". Take a look at prices on
> eBay before you make such verifiably false assumptions.

You are 100% wrong on that, the 2100 is the gold standard today, check
the prices for a fully wireless one. It's the last gem of the OLD Apple.

> Maybe you highly prize Newtons for your collection. If so, I'll sell you
> a complete MP100 box set with extra accessories (modem, memory card) that
> for the low low price of $500. Get it while it's hot, fanboy!

Mark, why so bitter, do you sense the end is near?

>
> I see that I touched a fanboy nerve. Good.

Not my comment, so not sure what all that is about.

>
> Your definition of "intelligent" seems to be fanboy worship. The iPhone
> has numerous technology and market problems.

After 74 days? Like what?

> Nothing about iPhone technology is excellent. It is a combination of a
> ecletic set of mediocrities. "It's a better web browser than other
> phones", but it isn't a particularly great phone. "It's a smaller and
> cheaper web browser than a laptop", but it does much less and has a tiny
> screen resolution.

Except the OS, the Design, the incredible Sales, the Fast WifI, the
Multi-Touch Screen, the Software, the Hacks, the Video Quality, the
iPod, the Thin size and GREAT battery life, shall I continue to make you
look like a fool?

> The target market for the iPhone are fanboys who go for the cool design
> and overlook the technological deficiencies. The suits looked at iPhone
> and gone back to Blackberry. Although there certainly are fangirls, most
> women look at the iPhone and see an expensive toy.

The market for the iPhone is 6.5 BILLION people, the fact it has an iPod
will quickly make it one of the most recognizable products of our
lifetimes.

> Now we have international travellers who discover that they better not
> bring their iPhone for incoming calls (the way you can for a NORMAL phone)
> if they don't want to be hit with thousands of dollars of GPRS roaming
> charges due to background fetching of email.

No, that's just not true. You can turn off those features if you want.
The iPhone will easily be the first WORLD PHONE that you can go anywhere
and pay the same rate.

>
> In the language of fanboys, "idiot" means "anyone who does not drink Steve
> Jobs' Kool-Aid."
>
> I will thoroughly enjoy the wails of anguish when iPhone dies. It will be
> sooner rather than later. iPod Touch is clearly the direction of that
> product line. As a product, iPod Touch makes much more sense.

Which in translation means you are TERRIFIED of the iPhone, you living
in Seattle, where there is basically NO TECHNICAL acheivement. Even
Microsoft is totally dumbfounded in what to do about the iPhone. The
Zune failed a horrible death, and now you are mad. Windows CE is
completely wiped out by the iPhone. The developers are moving over to
the iPhone in droves since it gives them a strong platform to build on,
not a weak one like what Blackberry, Symbian, Nokia develop.

The iPhone is the world's first "real" communication device, and it will
wipe out many "cell phone" payers in the months and years to come.

-

Steve Carroll

2007-09-10, 3:33 pm

In article <colalovesmacs-62FA11.12031310092007@mpls-nnrp-03.inet.qwest.net>,
Oxford <colalovesmacs@mac.com> wrote:

> Mark Crispin <mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU> wrote:
>
>
> 1,000,000 sold as of yesterday, fastest selling Cell Phone in the
> HISTORY of cell phones. And you were saying?
>
> Sorry Mark, game is already over, the iPhone will be come the MAIN phone
> people use on the planet for the next 50ish years.

50ish years? Hmmm, maybe there is some kind of Apple Kool- Aid out there;)

--
"None of you can be honest... you are all pathetic." - Snit
"I do not KF people" - Snit
"Not only do I lie about what others are claiming,
I show evidence from the records".-Snit
"You should take one of my IT classes some day." - Snit
"People can *not* make their own ring tones without hacks or work-arounds".-Snit

Todd Allcock

2007-09-10, 3:33 pm

At 10 Sep 2007 09:45:31 -0700 Mark Crispin wrote:

> It's also a failure. It's a solution in search of a problem.

Not really- at the very least, it's a very high-end MP3 phone.
They've created a new type of converged device- instead of a high-end
PDA phone with mediocre media player, they've developed a high-end
media phone with mediocre PDA. What's wrong with that?

> Where's the market after all the fanboys have bought one.

Someone tired of dragging both his RAZR and iPod with him everywhere
he goes? Seems like a large enough market to me. Certainly it won't
replace "every other phone within a year" like the fanboys claim, but
it is and will continue to be a success, IMO.

> All you're saying, in effect, is "for many times the price, the
> iPhone
> is less inadequate for browsing the web than other phones."

No, for about the same price as a high-end PDA phone it's a far less
inadequate browser. Again, what's wrong with that?

> With one more diagonal inch it could have FOUR TIMES as many pixels.
> That would permit web browsing without all the zooming in and out
> that has to be done on the iPhone.

And easily fit in your shirt pocket...

....if you use David Byrne's tailor...

Comparing the iPhone to your UMPC again, Mark? Different products,
different price points, different users, get it?

> The Blackberry crowd doesn't think so. The reports are coming in
> of business users who tried iPhone and went back to Blackberry.

Good for them. They've found a different product works better for a
different need, like you and I apparently did. I don't see you
bashing the Blackberry for IT'S tiny screen and even-more inadequate
browser. Why does iPhone get this special treatment? The rabid
legion of fanboys doesn't make the PRODUCT itself bad.

> The iPhone purports to be a phone. It is not a great phone, but it
> seems to work as well as any cheap non-3G GSM phone. Too bad that
> it costs so much more.

It's now $100 more than it's phoneless twin, the iPod Touch.
Certainly $100 seems reasonable for cellular capability.

> The iPhone purports to be a portable Internet access device. Too
> bad
> that the screen resolution is so small so you are forced to use the
> zoom. Too bad that you are stuck with Safari and can't use far
> superior choices such as Firefox.

So which phone on the market can use Firefox? My WinMo phone can't.
Blackberries can't. Why not also mock the iPhone for not being able
to levitate? Your main complaint seems to be "despite currently
having the best browser on any mobile phone available, it's still not
as good as a laptop!" Damning condemnation ideed.

> Too bad that you can't download and run third-party apps. Too bad
> there's no SDK to permit you to build your own apps.

Agreed. But to be fair, I don't recall Apple releasing an iPod SDK
either...

> Because of its limitations, the iPhone isn't a handheld computer.

Correct. They also don't pitch it as one.

> It's more like a PDA. But it's not a particularly good PDA,
> especially for enterprise users who need sync to their corporate
> system.

Agreed again. One of the many reaons I don't own one. But being a
lousy hammer doesn't make an excellent screwdriver a failure. It's a
pretty nice consumer product, and does an excellent job doing what it
does. What's wrong with that?

> Product failures are product lines that die without a successor.
> They are evolutionary dead ends.

That certainly is far too early to call with the iPhone.
If it's "first gen" deficiencies are stumbling blocks to success
(which so far doesn't seem to be the case), Apple can fix them. They
could releae an SDK tomorrow if needed. They could add 3G to the
next model. Update the bluetooth software to add serial port support
and allow external GPS. Improve the file readers to add editing-
etc.

> Nothing about iPhone technology is excellent. It is a combination
> of a ecletic set of mediocrities.

I disagree. I think it's an excellent piece of hardware crippled by
some bad business decisions (bad for end-users, not necessarily
bad for Apple.)

>"It's a better web browser than other phones", but it isn't a
> particularly great phone.

The same is often said of most PDA phones. My running joke when
anyone asks if I like my PPC phone is "I love it- it does e-mail,
web, music, movies, GPS- it does everything but make a phone call!"

> "It's a smaller and cheaper web browser than a laptop", but it does
> much less and has a tiny screen resolution.

I have never heard anyone (except you) claim the iPhone was a
competitor to a laptop. If anything, the (over)reliance on iTunes
makes that comparison ridiculous. Apple calls it the "best iPod
ever" and the "best cellphone ever." I'll give them the first, but
disagree with the secondary.

I have the same complaint with both WinMo phones and the iPhone- I
think both platforms are intentionally crippled to DISCOURAGE use as
a laptop replacement, to prevent cannibalizing sales of their core
businesses. (For MS, XP/Vista, for Apple, computer hardware.) For
every one who's PPC (and it's ~$10 WinMo license fee) replaces a
laptop is one less ~$30 license of Vista sold!

> The target market for the iPhone are fanboys who go for the cool
> design and overlook the technological deficiencies. The suits
> looked at iPhone and gone back to Blackberry.

Sure. UPS doesn't buy a lot of motorcycles to paint brown and
deliver packages with either. The iPhone isn't an enterprise e-mail
device. Strangely enough, it's coincidentally not marketed as one,
either. Different products, different market, get it yet?

> Although there certainly are fangirls, most women look at the iPhone
> and see an expensive toy.

Crass stereotypes aside, how is that a problem? Do women eschew
expensive toys? (And, if so, where does one find these women?) ;-)

> Now we have international travellers who discover that they better
> not bring their iPhone for incoming calls (the way you can for a
> NORMAL phone) if they don't want to be hit with thousands of dollars
> of GPRS roaming charges due to background fetching of email.

Yep. I can't imagine what stupid company would sell a device that
automatically retrieves e-mail, or even worse, create an entire
business model around it! *Cough* *RIM* *Cough*

> In the language of fanboys, "idiot" means "anyone who does not
> drink Steve Jobs' Kool-Aid."

There's constructive critique, and ridiculous naysaying. You are
simply demonstrating the latter, which maks you no better than the
fanboys polluting these discussions....

> I will thoroughly enjoy the wails of anguish when iPhone dies. It
> will be sooner rather than later. iPod Touch is clearly the
> direction of that product line. As a product, iPod Touch makes much
> more sense.

Depends. If I were an AT&T customer (almost 1/3 of cellular market
is) looking at a Touch, why not upgrade to an iPhone for a lousy C-
note?

> iPhone is destined to go down as an oddball that was a phone too,
> but more expensive and with less memory.

The same could easily have been said of the first Pocket PC phone
(the XDA) in 2002. It was a lousy phone akwardly grafted onto a low-
end PPC. Five years later, try to find a PPC without an intergrated
phone!

Who knows? In five years it might be almost as imposible to buy an
MP3 player without a phone built-in! ;-)

(Actually, considering the ease of changing SIM-based phones, I
expect more cheap crap to integrate phones as GSM hardware prices
continue to drop! Camping without the Coleman "Lanternfone?" Pshaw!
A beach outing without your combo ice-chest/radio/phone? Insane!
Bluetooth in the car? Why? Just stick your SIM into the slot next
to the CD! ;-)

--

"I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures
or double as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for
all the bells and whistles, but I could communicate better with
ACTUAL bells and whistles." -Bill Maher 9/25/2003

Todd Allcock

2007-09-10, 3:33 pm

At 10 Sep 2007 11:13:26 -0600 Oxford wrote:

> Yes, but MOT doesn't have a loyal following such as Apple. Every
> one of
> those first million iPhones went into the hands of people that
> understand modern technology, require the best in their lives and
> have
> an interest in making Apple even more successful.

Um, no, a good number went into the sequined purses of Paris Hilton-
types, right next to their Chihuahuas, because it's the hot phone of
the moment. It probably replaced their once-"hot," now pedestrian
RAZRs...

> It simply opens up room for the $499 16GB model and 3G for people
that
> live in those markets that 3G actually works, say around Nov 12th?
My
> 4GB's now have more features than when I bought them, they will
have
> more features again in 2-3 weeks, etc, etc... I think you are
forgetting
> that OSX is under the hood of these things, so basically anything
OSX
> can run, the iPhone can run. Think about it...

Yes, as soon as it's ported for a completely different processor-
"think about it."

> MOT, Nokia, RIM have no easy way to do this, they are pretty much
stuck

> with the hardware in place. Apple iPhone owners aren't.

Wow, Apple hardware updates via firmware updates! That's
impressive. How do they manage that? Nanobots perhaps? Von Neumann
machines?

Poor Moto, MS and RIM have to rely on the tens of thousands of
independent developers with intimate knowledge of the hardware and
OS, while iPhone gets the dozens of Apple programmers they yanked off
of Leopard long enough to write an iPhone patch...

> Sure, and last time I checked the 8GB iPod Touch was selling for
$299,

> about $99 more than the iPhone, but there is also the 16GB model of
the
> iPod Touch, so what is missing? can you guess?

Yeah, a 16GB $499 iPhone with the same basic hardware as the others.
Still no $99 smartphone killer in the line.

or[color=darkred]
>
> But they don't have the quality screen, that's probably the most
amazing
> thing about the iPhone, nobody has it at this price point. Nor the
iPod,

> nor the Multi-touch interface, WiFi, etc...

So? That still doesn't say "bye bye" to products in different
categories any more than BMW's best car says "bye bye" to the Toyotas
and Hondas that outsell them handily.

"consumer" use,[color=darkred]
>
> I really don't see any separation between the two markets.

I'm not surprised- you don't see a lot of things you choose to ignore.

> I say, let
> the best phone "win" and currently the iPhone is the best in the
> consumer space if you want to call it that, and in business, it's
> already doing freaky things like this...
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX_6yIO2bR8
>
> Once the SDK is ready for the iPhone, watch out...

Where is it? I haven't seen SJ's "apology letter" for not releasing
one yet. ;-)

> I just look at Apple's storied history of wiping out entire markets
> and placing their STAMP on the new one. Everyone uses a Mac today,

"Everyone" uses the product with a 5% market share?

> and sure
> "most" people use the cheap MS clone of the Mac, but if there
wasn't a
> Mac, people would still be using DOS, same with the Laser Printer,
same
> with Wireless, same with the iPod, etc, etc.

BS- innovation is enevitable.
The GUI needed horsepower, and the ability to multitask- power early
computers couldn't deliver.

As far as the iPod goes, even with Apple's market dominance the iPod
was good for competitors for putting MP3 players on the map. I'd
rather have a 5% market share of today's MP3 player market than a 90%
share of the pre-iPod MP3 player market.

> Ah, but you aren't looking far enough forward...

For the purposes of THIS discussion, why should I? You stated that
THIS $399 iPhone will say "bye bye" NOW to all other smartphones.

> The iPod in 2001 only
> came in White, Black and White Screen for $399, now look at the
iPod
> Touch a mere 6 years later. What happened? Full color, touch
screen, 8GB
> of flash, WiFi, a browser, coverflow, etc, etc... for $99 less.

Yes. In 2001 I paid $99 for a Nokia 8290 that made phone calls and
texted. Today $99 buys a WinMo smartphone with QVGA color screen
with media player, e-mail, browser, camera and Wi-fi. Do you
magically think only one company in an industry innovates?

> The exact same thing will happen with the iPhone... you'll have
iPhone
> nanos, an entire "iPhone" in an ear piece... during the next 6 years.

>
> Sit by the sidelines, or join in the fun Todd.

The other manufacturers don't sit on the sidelines either. They
matured the market to the point that the iPhone could make an entry.
Despite the 13 secret spices, er, I mean 200+ patents, there's still
"nothing new under the sun" in the iPhone in terms of functionality.

--

"I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures
or double as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for
all the bells and whistles, but I could communicate better with
ACTUAL bells and whistles." -Bill Maher 9/25/2003

Stephen

2007-09-10, 3:33 pm

On Sun, 9 Sep 2007 09:52:19 -0700, Mark Crispin
<mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU> had a flock of green cheek conures squawk
out:

>People thought
>that Newtons had great investment potential too but they remain a
>dime-a-dozen on eBay.

I haven't seen a Newton go for that low of a price on ebay.

Stephen
--

Mitch

2007-09-11, 10:33 pm

In article
<colalovesmacs-3FC7D2.11132610092007@mpls-nnrp-03.inet.qwest.net>,
Oxford <colalovesmacs@mac.com> wrote:

> Yes, but MOT doesn't have a loyal following such as Apple. Every one of
> those first million iPhones went into the hands of people that
> understand modern technology, require the best in their lives and have
> an interest in making Apple even more successful.

This is weird. Do you think there are people trying to make Apple
successful, just like those critics have claimed for so long?

I definitely don't.
I know a lot of people who rabidly wouldn't use anything but Mac any
more; in several industries. But I don't think any of them buy products
so that Apple does better. They buy what they need.

The difference with Apple is that they are perceived as being
well-designed and well-considered innovative products. That means the
buyers aren't taking chances with them. It's a big deal to know a
company works that hard on their products.
But that means that people buy Apple products _confidently_ and with an
interest in the innovation of products.

Don't you see that behavior?
That's certainly what happened with iPhone.

Mitch

2007-09-11, 10:33 pm

In article <sSgFi.17579$Vf1.16627@fe097.usenetserver.com>, Todd Allcock
< elecconnec@AmericaOn
Line.com> wrote:

> Yeah, a 16GB $499 iPhone with the same basic hardware as the others.
> Still no $99 smartphone killer in the line.

I'd argue that it's already either far better than the $99-level
competitors, or that the ones you are looking at are simply entirely
different kinds of devices.

But more importantly, get off the idea that this is a 'smartphone
killer.' There is no reason for the attitude, and it is not in any way
designed or intended to 'kill smartphones.'
This is merely AN ENTRY in the market -- Apple is not trying to defeat
all the devices anywhere near the category. They are trying to do
similar things, in a different way.

It is the DIFFERENT they are trying for, not the 'killer' in the market.

Stop working from Microsoft's attitudes; they're the idiots, not the
goalmakers.

Mitch

2007-09-11, 10:33 pm

In article <sSgFi.17579$Vf1.16627@fe097.usenetserver.com>, Todd Allcock
< elecconnec@AmericaOn
Line.com> wrote:

> Yes. In 2001 I paid $99 for a Nokia 8290 that made phone calls and
> texted. Today $99 buys a WinMo smartphone with QVGA color screen
> with media player, e-mail, browser, camera and Wi-fi. Do you
> magically think only one company in an industry innovates?
>
>
> iPhone
Silly, ignorant, and presumptive nonsense.
Everyone working in technology today should be insulted that you think
so litte goes into this and expect so much from them so easily.
[color=darkred]
> there's still
> "nothing new under the sun" in the iPhone in terms of functionality.
No, I think you mean there is nothing _major_ and totally original in
the device. Unless you count visual voicemail, which is a major
difference, or the scrolling and browsing of the touchscreen, the input
keyboard, the no-compromise browser, the music-scrolling display, the
great music player, huge storage, etc.
Why don't you count those?

Is really new stuff so necessary? Is it done in ANY other device in
this category?
Does something have to be a true groundbreaker in *huge* ways to be
considered at all?
If so, then why is anyone buying any other phone model?

Is it really because it doesn't have a mass transporter and fusion
power source built in?

Todd Allcock

2007-09-11, 10:33 pm

At 11 Sep 2007 12:31:06 -1000 Mitch wrote:

[color=darkred]
>
> I'd argue that it's already either far better than the $99-level
> competitors, or that the ones you are looking at are simply entirely
> different kinds of devices.
I'd probably agree on both points.

I think you might have missed my point- I'm not pointing this out to
anyone but Oxford, who claims the price drop will wipe out all other
models of Smartphone- I just pointed out thatthe iPhone is a single
product (as of yet) and doesn't compete in the low-end smartphone
product.

> But more importantly, get off the idea that this is a 'smartphone
> killer.' There is no reason for the attitude, and it is not in any
> way
> designed or intended to 'kill smartphones.'

Agreed- I'm on your side. I'm just picking on Oxford. You need to
read these comments in the context presented.

> This is merely AN ENTRY in the market -- Apple is not trying to
> defeat
> all the devices anywhere near the category. They are trying to do
> similar things, in a different way.

Agreed.

> It is the DIFFERENT they are trying for, not the 'killer' in the
market.
>
> Stop working from Microsoft's attitudes; they're the idiots, not the
> goalmakers.

Tell it to Oxford. I think the iPhone is the most inspiring phone
device to hit the market in a long time, which will drive the sales
of all Smartphones as it gets more consumers thinking about what they
can do with a modern cellphone, and expands the market geometrically
beyond enterprise users and geeks.

--

"I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures
or double as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for
all the bells and whistles, but I could communicate better with
ACTUAL bells and whistles." -Bill Maher 9/25/2003

Todd Allcock

2007-09-11, 10:33 pm

At 11 Sep 2007 12:55:43 -1000 Mitch wrote:

> Silly, ignorant, and presumptive nonsense.
> Everyone working in technology today should be insulted that you
think

> so litte goes into this and expect so much from them so easily.

Not at all- I never said "so little goes into this"- I think it's
insulting to presume an entire industry sits around on their hands
waiting to copy the Next Big Thing. EVERYONE in the industry is
constantly improving their products. Steve Jobs insult that the
cellular industry was somehow "broken" and he was going to "fix it"
was a slap in the face to the hard working people from dozens of
companies that brought the industry where it is today.

functionality.[color=darkred]
> No, I think you mean there is nothing _major_ and totally original
in
> the device.

No, I wouldn't go that far- there are quite a few gee-whiz features,
but that's different than functionality. "The Real Web" is a
"feature," for example- "web browsing" is the functionality.

> Unless you count visual voicemail, which is a major
> difference,

Yes and no. VV is a neat concept, but it's a "smoke and mirrors"
feature. Callwave did it with home telephones years before iPhone,
and launched VV for cellphones a couple of months prior to the
iPhone's release. (Although the true "pioneers" figured it out
before it had a clever name. Many VoIP services do VM-to-e-mail for
free, so anyone who "forwarded when unavailable" to a free-incoming
throwaway VoIP account like Voicestick.com or Freedigits.com could
direct their VM to a text or e-mail message.)

In it's essense, it's just call forwarding + push e-mail. Apple's
true innovation with VV was wrapping it up as a dedicated function
and getting a cell carrier to play along, which, of course, makes it
transparent and easy to the end-user, which is the REAL "feature" of
the iPhone- making the user experience easier- (i.e. iTunes loading e-
mail settings to the phone) particularly at the setup.

> or the scrolling and browsing of the touchscreen,

It's a touchscreen. Multi-touch is cute, and it's certainly a well-
thought out, excellent interface for "fat finger" use, but it's an
evolutionary, rather than revolutionary improvement.

> the input keyboard,

Reminds me of the better in-car GPS units- big buttons for fat fingers,

with predictive text. Nice, but not really "new." Admittedly, I'd
love to have it as an option on my PPC for in-car use. Poking an
address into my PPC for navigation is difficult without pulling out a
stylus.

> the no-compromise browser,

"Little-compromise" browser. ;-) Again, I've said many times it's
the best mobile browser there is.

> the music-scrolling display, the
> great music player, huge storage, etc.
> Why don't you count those?

Who said I'm not "counting" them. Again, they're features, not
functions. "Music Library" is a function- "Cover Flow" is a feature.

> Is really new stuff so necessary?

No, unless you get on a stage in a black-turtleneck and and verbally
b*tch-slap an entire industry! ;-)

> Is it done in ANY other device in
> this category?

I'd say the last "revolutionary" devices were the original
Blackberries. If you count the iPhone's "new stuff" as a revolution,
I'd also nominate the Treo 600 as it's direct predecessor (for taking
existing technology and repackaging it in a useful, user-friendly
way, at least for it's day.) But the evolution from early BBs to the
modern ones, from PPCs and Palm Pilots to moderday Treos and Qs are
simply the natural progression of the technolgy improvement of the
last decade- lower-power components, better displays, cheaper memory,
longer-life batteries, etc.

> Does something have to be a true groundbreaker in *huge* ways to be
> considered at all?

No. Again, I'm very impressed by the iPhone. The difference between
myself and the Ox, is I see the iPhone as an excellent niche product,
as opposed to the Cro-Magnon phone that forces the Neanderthal phones
that came before it into extinction. Manufacturers will be copying
many aspects of iPhone design for awhile because it's fun to use.

> If so, then why is anyone buying any other phone model?

Cost and features. At $399 iPhone's a niche product. Without a
physical keypad it's a niche product.

> Is it really because it doesn't have a mass transporter and fusion
> power source built in?

No, but those would be nice... ;-) Fusion would give it the needed
power that power-robbing features like Flash and 3G command,
according to Oxy.

--

"I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures
or double as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for
all the bells and whistles, but I could communicate better with
ACTUAL bells and whistles." -Bill Maher 9/25/2003

Mitch

2007-09-11, 10:33 pm

In article <NDGFi.23116$no6.565@fe091.usenetserver.com>, Todd Allcock
< elecconnec@AmericaOn
Line.com> wrote:

> I'm not pointing this out to
> anyone but Oxford, who claims the price drop will wipe out all other
> models of Smartphone- I just pointed out thatthe iPhone is a single
> product (as of yet) and doesn't compete in the low-end smartphone
> product.
Yes, and I feel like I'm arguing against a guy (in another thread) that
thinks because people are impressed with iPhone that everyone else's
preferences are foolish.
He, by the way, can't decide whether to compare to the 'almost-smart'
phone market or the mini-laptop market; he is pretending there is no
actual smart phone market.

> Agreed- I'm on your side. I'm just picking on Oxford. You need to
> read these comments in the context presented.
I am, but I'm also trying to get Ozford to use the terms that make some
sense out of what he is saying.
He's so extreme. Everything either kills every competitor or is first
and best at everything it does.

> Tell it to Oxford. I think the iPhone is the most inspiring phone
> device to hit the market in a long time, which will drive the sales
> of all Smartphones as it gets more consumers thinking about what they
> can do with a modern cellphone, and expands the market geometrically
> beyond enterprise users and geeks.
That's a good approach; "let's see what it can make the market do"
combined with "let's see how it can change people's approach to tech
and personal devices."
I'm hoping it will teach people to expect more effort and development
thought in products they buy (and often loudly comment about).

Todd Allcock

2007-09-12, 4:33 am

At 11 Sep 2007 17:22:42 -1000 Mitch wrote:

> Yes, and I feel like I'm arguing against a guy (in another thread)
> that
> thinks because people are impressed with iPhone that everyone else's
> preferences are foolish.
> He, by the way, can't decide whether to compare to the 'almost-
> smart'
> phone market or the mini-laptop market; he is pretending there is no
> actual smart phone market.

Yeah, the guy with the kangaroo-pouches sewn to his shirtsto carry
his "pocketable" UMPC!

> I'm also trying to get Ozford to use the terms that make some
> sense out of what he is saying.
> He's so extreme. Everything either kills every competitor or is
> first and best at everything it does.

Yep. Thank god Steve Jobs invented fire, or we'd still be living in
caves and painting C-prompts on the walls...

I'll be generous and call it "youthful enthusiasm" rather than kool-
aid. He just doesn't understand (or pretends not to) how market
forces work, and underestimates the differences in people. No matter
how well you design a UI, some people simply won't like it. Joysticks,
click wheels, scroll wheels, and D-pads all perform the same
function, and each has it's fans and foes. If you build one product
(i.e. an iPod) there's no possible way to satisfy everyone.

> That's a good approach; "let's see what it can make the market do"
> combined with "let's see how it can change people's approach to tech
> and personal devices."

Sure- while I think there have been plenty of devices that can do
what the iPhone can (often in more rudimentary or awkward ways) I
conceed the iPhone did illustrate a deficiency in the cellphone biz-
the inability (or at least inefficiency) of carriers (and
manufacturers, but mostly carriers) to properly educate and inform
users what capabilities mobile devices have had. The fact that so
many people THINK the iPhone is the first phone with Google Maps, or
that could play movies, means the industry didn't know how to get the
message out. And the whole "carrier stands between the end-user and
manufacturer" makes things worse- I was at the Denver Children's
Museum last summer taking pictures of
my girls climbing on the "retired" fire engine there and a Mom was
snapping pics of her kids with her RAZR. She said to me "I forgot my
camera, but I don't know why I'm bothering with this. I've had it
six months and still haven't figured out how to get the pictures off
it and onto my computer!" And, when I noticed it was a Verizon
phone, I wondered if it was even possible without a bit of hacking or
if she was stuck MMSing them to herself at $0.25 each!

> I'm hoping it will teach people to expect more effort and
> development
> thought in products they buy (and often loudly comment about).

Agreed. I'm hoping it's a "high tide raises all boats" thing. Many
Blackberries just a year or two ago couldn't open a picture
attachment- now many have media players. Modern WinMo phones only
need to be rebooted two or three times a week, instead of 2-3 times a
day- we're talking about major progress! ;-) If the iPhone can
teach carriers that we'll spend $400 on a phone that offers us $400
of value, we might see more innovative high-end products. It'd be
great to see a carrier have as good a selection of high-end phones as
they do "penny" phones for a change! US carriers tend to fill each
perceived niche with a single phone- i.e. "that's our 'business' PDA
phone, that's our Blackberry, that's our QWERTY phone for IM/texting
and that's our 'music phone.'" Their idea of product depth is that
the one model they offer comes in a half-dozen colors. (Note to LG
and/or Verizon- I get "cherry" red and "mint" green, but what the
hell is "blue" Chocolate?)

--

"I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures
or double as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for
all the bells and whistles, but I could communicate better with
ACTUAL bells and whistles." -Bill Maher 9/25/2003

Elmo P. Shagnasty

2007-09-12, 7:33 am

In article <ODGFi.23117$no6.22726@fe091.usenetserver.com>,
Todd Allcock < elecconnec@AmericaOn
Line.com> wrote:

>
> Reminds me of the better in-car GPS units- big buttons for fat fingers,
>
> with predictive text. Nice, but not really "new." Admittedly, I'd
> love to have it as an option on my PPC for in-car use. Poking an
> address into my PPC for navigation is difficult without pulling out a
> stylus.

Garmin solved that one. Their Nuvi interface is now available for
WinMo, and requires not one bit of stylus. Fingers only.

Mitch

2007-09-12, 7:33 am

In article <icLFi.17685$Vf1.5035@fe097.usenetserver.com>, Todd Allcock
< elecconnec@AmericaOn
Line.com> wrote:

> At 11 Sep 2007 17:22:42 -1000 Mitch wrote:
>
>
>
> Yeah, the guy with the kangaroo-pouches sewn to his shirtsto carry
> his "pocketable" UMPC!
He claimed it was nearly the same size as an iPhone. It's apparently
six times bigger.
He was also claiming that $100 smart phones do the same things, even
though his own choice for those operations was a mini-laptop costing at
least $1800.

>
> Yep. Thank god Steve Jobs invented fire, or we'd still be living in
> caves and painting C-prompts on the walls...
Please don't; next we'll see people claiming that Mac users really
believe that, because it was posted here.

> I'll be generous and call it "youthful enthusiasm" rather than kool-
> aid. He just doesn't understand (or pretends not to) how market
> forces work, and underestimates the differences in people. No matter
> how well you design a UI, some people simply won't like it. Joysticks,
> click wheels, scroll wheels, and D-pads all perform the same
> function, and each has it's fans and foes. If you build one product
> (i.e. an iPod) there's no possible way to satisfy everyone.
Of course not; and until iPod and iPhone, people didn't seem to mind
that there was more than one device made each year. But the mere fact
people are impressed with iPhone has caused many to get their hackles
up and get angry that everyone isn't buying the same old stuff.

>
> Sure- while I think there have been plenty of devices that can do
> what the iPhone can (often in more rudimentary or awkward ways) I
> conceed the iPhone did illustrate a deficiency in the cellphone biz-
> the inability (or at least inefficiency) of carriers (and
> manufacturers, but mostly carriers) to properly educate and inform
> users what capabilities mobile devices have had. The fact that so
> many people THINK the iPhone is the first phone with Google Maps, or
> that could play movies, means the industry didn't know how to get the
> message out.
Or that they knew, but the feature was discouraging use because the way
to use it or get started was too uninviting.
Lots of users don't see that part -- they figure if it is there, it was
inviting. That's simply not true in any sense.

> And the whole "carrier stands between the end-user and
> manufacturer" makes things worse- I was at the Denver Children's
> Museum last summer taking pictures of
> my girls climbing on the "retired" fire engine there and a Mom was
> snapping pics of her kids with her RAZR. She said to me "I forgot my
> camera, but I don't know why I'm bothering with this. I've had it
> six months and still haven't figured out how to get the pictures off
> it and onto my computer!" And, when I noticed it was a Verizon
> phone, I wondered if it was even possible without a bit of hacking or
> if she was stuck MMSing them to herself at $0.25 each!

>
> Agreed. I'm hoping it's a "high tide raises all boats" thing. Many
> Blackberries just a year or two ago couldn't open a picture
> attachment- now many have media players. Modern WinMo phones only
> need to be rebooted two or three times a week, instead of 2-3 times a
> day- we're talking about major progress! ;-) If the iPhone can
> teach carriers that we'll spend $400 on a phone that offers us $400
> of value, we might see more innovative high-end products.

A lot of the people upset by this issue don't understand that everyone
knows iPhone isn't for all users; they seem to believe that positive
statements are the same as telling them they have to buy it and love
it.

Maybe that's why Razr did so well; every positive statement was taken
by some as an obligation to buy the damn thing. It certainly wasn't
uniquely original or fascinating, but it got _so_ many buyers.

> It'd be
> great to see a carrier have as good a selection of high-end phones as
> they do "penny" phones for a change! US carriers tend to fill each
> perceived niche with a single phone- i.e. "that's our 'business' PDA
> phone, that's our Blackberry, that's our QWERTY phone for IM/texting
> and that's our 'music phone.'" Their idea of product depth is that
> the one model they offer comes in a half-dozen colors. (Note to LG
> and/or Verizon- I get "cherry" red and "mint" green, but what the
> hell is "blue" Chocolate?)

At my local service store, it's the opposite; everything in the store
fits only two niches They offer only the models with Razr-like features
and a handful of low-end smart phones running WindowsCrp.
Nothing original, unusual, uncommon, different; nothing which is
anything but the absolute mainstream.
It's pitiful. Access to almost the entire world of devices, and these
stores can't figure there are any buyers out there worth stocking a
single non-mainstream model.

Mitch

2007-09-12, 10:33 am

In article <ODGFi.23117$no6.22726@fe091.usenetserver.com>, Todd Allcock
< elecconnec@AmericaOn
Line.com> wrote:

> Steve Jobs insult that the
> cellular industry was somehow "broken" and he was going to "fix it"
> was a slap in the face to the hard working people from dozens of
> companies that brought the industry where it is today.
I'm not sure; I certainly haven't seen much new effort. Certainly few
of the makers do anything to make their own interface or work with
something different; most just use the same packages!
So it's the recent work that needed a slap. (Having an interface is not
enough; they needed to work toward a good interface, constantly.)

> functionality.
> in the device.
>
> No, I wouldn't go that far- there are quite a few gee-whiz features,
> but that's different than functionality. "The Real Web" is a
> "feature," for example- "web browsing" is the functionality.
So then you're saying the iPhone didn't invent new functions?
So what? What recent device has invented new functions?

>
> Yes and no. VV is a neat concept, but it's a "smoke and mirrors"
> feature. Callwave did it with home telephones years before iPhone,
> and launched VV for cellphones a couple of months prior to the
> iPhone's release. (Although the true "pioneers" figured it out
> before it had a clever name. Many VoIP services do VM-to-e-mail for
> free, so anyone who "forwarded when unavailable" to a free-incoming
> throwaway VoIP account like Voicestick.com or Freedigits.com could
> direct their VM to a text or e-mail message.)
>
> In it's essense, it's just call forwarding + push e-mail. Apple's
> true innovation with VV was wrapping it up as a dedicated function
> and getting a cell carrier to play along, which, of course, makes it
> transparent and easy to the end-user, which is the REAL "feature" of
> the iPhone- making the user experience easier- (i.e. iTunes loading e-
> mail settings to the phone) particularly at the setup.
Are you sure you understand what the feature in VV is?
You equated it here with a feature on home phones (impossible) and with
push e-mail attachments (irrelevant; a different function).
The feature allows the user to select which message to hear from the
screen. That means out-of-sequence access within the same voicemail
systems.

>
> It's a touchscreen. Multi-touch is cute, and it's certainly a well-
> thought out, excellent interface for "fat finger" use, but it's an
> evolutionary, rather than revolutionary improvement.
Again, so what? Evolutionary development is very important, critically
relevant, and in this case was drastically needed.

<snipped>
>
> Who said I'm not "counting" them. Again, they're features, not
> functions. "Music Library" is a function- "Cover Flow" is a feature.
Yes, but as I said before, why aren't those relevant?
Especially here most of the competition is wallowing in the same junk
as ever.

>
> No, unless you get on a stage in a black-turtleneck and and verbally
> b*tch-slap an entire industry! ;-)
I'd say that's a good point, except that most companies make much more
aggressive statements with less to offer. Microsoft is infamous for it.
Look at how LG marketed the 'chocolate' or Samsung the Blackjack; they
have even used the word "revolutionary" without offering much
different.

>
> I'd say the last "revolutionary" devices were the original
> Blackberries. If you count the iPhone's "new stuff" as a revolution,
No, I wasn't -- and again, it's not about that word.
I am asking if there is anything else with this set of functions.

> I'd also nominate the Treo 600 as it's direct predecessor (for taking
> existing technology and repackaging it in a useful, user-friendly
> way, at least for it's day.)
Yes, the Treos did a great job -- until they wooed Microsoft.
They even offer 320x320 res, which is more than most smart phones.

> But the evolution from early BBs to the
> modern ones, from PPCs and Palm Pilots to moderday Treos and Qs are
> simply the natural progression of the technolgy improvement of the
> last decade- lower-power components, better displays, cheaper memory,
> longer-life batteries, etc.
Right -- but do any of them fit in a category against the iPhone?
I agree with the simple fact that phones can do more today. Of course
they do. But do users actually use them? Are they graceful integrations
of functions, or a cobbling of leftovers?

>
> No. Again, I'm very impressed by the iPhone. The difference between
> myself and the Ox, is I see the iPhone as an excellent niche product,
> as opposed to the Cro-Magnon phone that forces the Neanderthal phones
> that came before it into extinction. Manufacturers will be copying
> many aspects of iPhone design for awhile because it's fun to use.
>
>
> Cost and features. At $399 iPhone's a niche product. Without a
> physical keypad it's a niche product.
Two problems here: it's not a niche product, it's a narrow-appeal
product. And, niches are also very good, desirable markets to build
for.
So even the narrow-appeal and niche markets are both valuable and
desirable; ignoring them may be part of the reason the general
hoi-palloi of midrange phones is failing to appeal very well.

In other words, that factor may be exactly the lesson the whole
industry needs to relearn. Try limiting your device's appeal in order
to make it do better for the specific market it really appeals to -- it
can be focused and specific and get much more of it's market if you do
well there.
That's what several of the high-end smart phones do, after all. Those
are the ones that get noticed, and get praised, rather than the stuff
people actually buy in large numbers. But it doesn't have to be an
expensive product to be a focused product.

I got a better 2 MP camera for my parent's recent phone, but it's
awful. Menu operation to initiate, and HORRIBLE quality, with a truly
bizarre color correction algorithm. Basically unusable; I bought them a
great ultracompact camera soon after.

Tinman

2007-09-12, 10:33 am

"Mitch" wrote:
>
> Of course not; and until iPod and iPhone, people didn't seem to mind
> that there was more than one device made each year. But the mere fact
> people are impressed with iPhone has caused many to get their hackles
> up and get angry that everyone isn't buying the same old stuff.
>

I don't know if that's the reason, but it sure seems like there are people
that just love to hate it (I don't mean people like Todd). Perhaps they
thought it would bomb and cannot accept that they were mistaken. In any
event it seems like a lot of wasted energy to me.

As for me, I was extremely skeptical that it would actually turn out to be
as good it was presented to be at its announcement back in January. But I
kept an open mind and finally bought one. I don't currently own a Mac, and
the only other Apple products I've purchased prior were several Newtons, a
mid-'90s Mac, and back in 2000, an Airport AP. Oh, and a few iPods that I
purchased as gifts for others.

--
Mike

Todd Allcock

2007-09-12, 12:33 pm

"Mitch" <mitch@hawaii.rr> wrote in message news:120920070236221
921%
mitch@hawaii.rr...
> In article <ODGFi.23117$no6.22726@fe091.usenetserver.com>, Todd
Allcock
> < elecconnec@AmericaOn
Line.com> wrote:
>
[color=darkred]
>
> I'm not sure; I certainly haven't seen much new effort. Certainly
few
> of the makers do anything to make their own interface or work with
> something different; most just use the same packages!

Don't confuse the inflexibility of carriers with the innovation of
manufacturers. Carriers like Verizon often force manufacturers to
replace their GUIs and feature sets with Verizon's to insure a common
look/feel among devices (and probably to reduce support costs- if
every phone has the same menu system, it makes answering "how do I
turn off/on this or that" MUCH easier to answer!)

> So it's the recent work that needed a slap. (Having an interface is
not
> enough; they needed to work toward a good interface, constantly.)

There's nothing inherently wrong with the interfaces on Treos, RIMs
or WM devices. Icons and drop downs work just fine. Emulating a
traditional desktop UI (icons and menus) is intuitive for computer
users, which, of course, is "most of us" these days.

[color=darkred]
>
> So then you're saying the iPhone didn't invent new functions?
> So what? What recent device has invented new functions?

None I'm aware of. I'm not saying it's "bad" to not incorporate new
functions- I'm just putting the iPhone's "advances" in perspective-
it's got a pretty snazzy user interface, but it didn't reinvent the
wheel like the Oxford's of the world want us to believe.

> Are you sure you understand what the feature in VV is?

Yes- do you know how it does it? ;-)

> You equated it here with a feature on home phones (impossible)

Have you forgetton the years B.B.? (Before Broadband?) The "germ"
of the VV idea was alerting dial-up users that they missed a call
while on online. Your home phone was forwarded, when online, to a
service that recorded your messages, converted them to audio files
then e-mailed them to you as attachments. You clicked on the
attachment and heard the message. Other people simply used it to
easily get their home VM at work or on vacation. Log on to your
personal e-mail account and retrieve any missed home phone call on
your PC without any clunky touch-tone codes to remote answering
machines, or LD charges.

> and with
> push e-mail attachments (irrelevant; a different function).

Not if you look at the mechanism behind what VV really is "under the
hood." VV on the iPhone is essentially a "secret" AT&T-supplied push-
e-mail account hidden behind the VV interface. You miss a call, and
AT&T pushes an e-mail to your iPhone containg an audio file of the VM
that shows up in your "voicemail" menu instead of your e-mail. You
click on it and it plays back the audio. Clever, and a
"revolutionary feature" if you pay no attention to the man, and his
push e-mail account, behind the curtain...

I probably had VV before you did. I've used Callwave.com's VV for
about six months- starting well before the iPhone release. I set my
phone to forward all calls I don't answer (the standard GSM
conditional "forward when unavailable" function) to my Callwave-
provided VM box number. Callwave sends an e-mail to my push e-mail
account with the subject "Callwave: Mitch (808) 555-1212 left a 28
second message." (Name ID is provided by Callwave, if available). I
open the e-mail, click the 28k attachment and hear your message to
me. Just like with iPhone, I can choose what message to hear when,
without calling in to retrieve messages. Missed calls are reported
as "Callwave: Mitch (808) xxx-xxxx -- Missed call" which is handy if
you've left a service area or gone out of range, since cellphones
don't know who called when they were offline. When I come back ino a
service area after being out, any the missed calls/voicemails come
flooding into my push inbox.

To differentiate themselves from iPhone's VV, Callwave has recently
implemented an (admittedly goofy) speech-to-text transcriber function
they call "VGist" to give you the "gist" of the message without
having to playback the audio. So in the body of the message I might
theoretically see: "I've just landed. I'm waiting by baggage carosel
nine. Bye!" Unfortunately, unless the caller has the slow monotone
diction of a TV newscaster, I'll probably actually see "I've jumped
lantern. I'm waiting. Buy baggy carrots; sell nine. Buy!")

> The feature allows the user to select which message to hear from the
> screen. That means out-of-sequence access within the same voicemail
> systems.

Again, smoke and mirrors. You're simply selecting from a list of e-
mail attachments hidden by the GUI. Very slick feature, but all it
was waiting for was a form of instant delivery that could handle
larger messages than SMS (push e-mail) and phones with audio
playback. Even "dumb phones" can have a limited form of VV capability.
The VV notifications come in as texts rather than e-mail, with
clickable links to retrieve the audio via the phone's WAP browser, or
you can read an abbreviated version of the "gist;" Callwave's AI
engine has decided what the most "important" part of the message is .
Click the appropriate text, "out of sequence" and click the link to
hear the message, if only to figure out what hell a "baggy carrot"
was supposed to be! ;-)

>
> Again, so what? Evolutionary development is very important,
critically
> relevant, and in this case was drastically needed.

While evolutionary development IS important, it isn't a giant
breakthrough in this particular case- the "old way" works fine. I
don't think the typical touchscreen is a "broken" interface. I'm
more impressed with the big buttons than the fact I can "squeeze"
pictures. I used to have a GPS program for my PPC that used gestures
to simplify in-car operation. You slid your finger diagonally from
lower right to upper left to zoom out, for example, and the opposite
way to zoom in. (Those are the only two that I remember off the top
of my head- other than the cool gesturing, it was a crummy program!)

> <snipped>
feature.[color=darkred]
>
> Yes, but as I said before, why aren't those relevant?
> Especially here most of the competition is wallowing in the same
junk
> as ever.

Why is Coverflow an improvement over a scrolling list of text, other
than the gee-whizzyness? Why is either as good as a simple Voice
Command? It's an improvement from a snazzy POV, but it's not really
any more efficient. Again, no one is claiming Apple can't build an
eye-popping GUI.

verbally[color=darkr
ed]
>
> I'd say that's a good point, except that most companies make much
more
> aggressive statements with less to offer.

In advertising yes- the keynote was a little over-the-top.
> Microsoft is infamous for it.
> Look at how LG marketed the 'chocolate' or Samsung the Blackjack;
they
> have even used the word "revolutionary" without offering much
> different.

The irony is they both attempted to do exactly what Apple did- couch
a bunch of features in what they thought was a snazzy state-of-the-
art GUI and offer it up as a "revolution." Apple succeeded on that
score, at least more than the others but the concept was the same-
take the currently available feature set and make it easy to use.

revolution,[color=da
rkred]
>
> No, I wasn't -- and again, it's not about that word.
> I am asking if there is anything else with this set of functions.

You and I obviously are using the term "function" in different ways.
I'm using it in the old school marketing sense- every product has
features, functions, and benefits- i.e. Feature: Coverflow; Function:
Selection of media; Benefit: Quickly allows user to find desired
content, and makes onlookers jealous.

So yes, MANY devices offer the same "functions" as the iPhone. Many,
many, many. Few offer the same "features," meaning ways of
accomplishing that goal. Similarly, other devices offer features
iPhone doesn't, i.e. Voice Commands.

taking[color=darkred
]
>
> Yes, the Treos did a great job -- until they wooed Microsoft.

"Wooed?" You mean they were drowning and MS threw them a life
preserver! I'm not bashing the basic look/feel of the Palm OS, but
it was getting dated, and problems within the organization were
preventing them from keeping up. If Palm had had the resources of
Microsoft, the Palm OS would be a beauty to behold I'm sure, but the
Palm Treos were hardly better than M505s with phones bolted on.
Truly a pity.

> They even offer 320x320 res, which is more than most smart phones.

And less than five or six... ;-)

memory,[color=darkre
d]
>
> Right -- but do any of them fit in a category against the iPhone?

I'm not sure. It's a loaded question. I could go all Apple Fanboy
and buy into the "it's in a class by itself" jazz, or I could go anti-
Apple and say, no- other phones aren't so limited blah, blah, but I
think Steve Jobs intentionally or unintentionally answered the
question during the new iPod release last week. By announcing the
iPhone price drop after the demonstration of the iPod Touch, he
pretty much cemented what the iPhone is at this moment in time-
Apple's top of the line iPod.

So is any phone in it's class? Nope. iRiver, Archos and Zune don't
make versions of their media players with built-in phones.

> I agree with the simple fact that phones can do more today. Of
course
> they do. But do users actually use them? Are they graceful
integrations
> of functions, or a cobbling of leftovers?

Both. Some functions simply don't lend themselves to graceful
transition. Can I find a seafood restaurant with Google Maps or Live
Search and make a click or two to call, add it my contacts, or get
driving directions? Of course. How should I gracefully move from my
phone's dialpad to my Usenet newsreader, however? What's the logical
"flow" in that action? I have to make a few clicks- my Start Menu,
then click on the icon (if I'bm lucky enough to have used it
recently,) otherwise it's three more taps- programs- connectivity-
QMail.

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>
> Two problems here: it's not a niche product, it's a narrow-appeal
> product.

Ok- I'll accept that.

> And, niches are also very good, desirable markets to build
> for.

I never said niche is undesirable (in fact I argued just the opposite
point not too long ago, probably in this ridiculously long thread- it
keeps competitors at bay, and margins high.)

> So even the narrow-appeal and niche markets are both valuable and
> desirable; ignoring them may be part of the reason the general
> hoi-palloi of midrange phones is failing to appeal very well.

I think there are too many me-too phones in the low and mid arena.
Go to Verizon's site and search all of their phones from free to
$100. You'll see an endless display of identical looking generic
flip phones each in x# of "designer colors" that the phones' own
mothers couldn't pick out of a lineup!

Nokia figured out that long ago- they've released a number of unique
designs- they usually miss more than they hit, but they realize that
a model has to look different to jump out at you in a sea of
identical phones.

> In other words, that factor may be exactly the lesson the whole
> industry needs to relearn. Try limiting your device's appeal in
order

> to make it do better for the specific market it really appeals to --
it
> can be focused and specific and get much more of it's market if you
do
> well there.

Sure, but you're assuming that's a new idea. The diffence is that
"limiting appeal" was done more narrowly before. Look at phones like
the T-mobile Sidekick or Verizon EnV- they're targeted at frequent
texters/e-mailers. The Nokia 5300 Express Music phone and the Sony
Ericsson W series are MP3 phones. The iPhone does a few things very
well, but almost too many to be considered "limited-appeal." It's
like asking for a Swiss Army knife with just a serrated blade, the
screwdriver, the scissors and the toothpick- but nothing else!
That's a VERY narrow market, and many would look at it and say "how
much harder/more expensive would it have been to add the tweezers?"
That's my beef with the iPhone- I get the lack of 3G- Apple's
explanation makes sense. But why no EXTERNAL GPS option? It already
has Google Maps, and bluetooth. What POSSIBLE excuse does Apple have
to leave off a lousy BT serial port driver and effectively cripple on
the phone's main selling points (at least according to the commercials,
and GMs placement on the home screen?) That's a feature that
requires NO additional hardware, and precious little development
costs for a major feature set increase that other MUCH cheaper phones
have. You can use a $49 RAZR as a satnav with the crummy Java GMM app,
yet you can't do the same with the 10x as expensive (ok, now 8x!)
iPhone's very polished, very bragged-about implementation of Google
Maps? What about the potential sales of overpriced white enamel and
brushed aluminum iPhone-branded GPS pucks? They could even reuse the
dies that made the old round mice to cut costs! ;-)

> That's what several of the high-end smart phones do, after all.
Those

> are the ones that get noticed, and get praised, rather than the
stuff

> people actually buy in large numbers. But it doesn't have to be an
> expensive product to be a focused product.

Agreed. But again you're discounting the "focused" products of the
past. The Sidekick has been a very successful "smartphone" product
for T-mobile- it's the smartphone of choice for the under-30 set. It
offers a pretty decent web browser, e-mail, texting, IM, and
rudimentary PDA functions (all of it web/server-based, to keep the
device's "processing needs" and costs minimal- it's the "smartphone"
equivalent of a dumb terminal.) It never had the press coverage of
the iPhone (except for the 15-minutes of fame it received when
someone hacked the Sidekick server a couple of years ago and
downloaded Paris Hilton's contact list!) but it's sold several
million units in it's three or four incarnations, and is a
significant part of T-Mobile's relatively high data ARPU. And, like
the iPhone, there's "nothing else like it." (And, again, like the
iPhone, it's unsuitable for my personal needs, but hey, I'm not in
it's market either.)

> I got a better 2 MP camera for my parent's recent phone, but it's
> awful. Menu operation to initiate, and HORRIBLE quality, with a
truly

> bizarre color correction algorithm. Basically unusable; I bought
them a
> great ultracompact camera soon after.

My first camera phone was a Nokia 3650, which takes much better
pictures with it's QVGA 0.3MP res camera than the alleged 1.3MP
camera in my WinMo phone. I have yet to take an in-focus picture
with the HTC- close up, mid-range, long range- doesn't matter. It's
as if the lens is mounted at the wrong focal point! The Nokia was a
handy "21st century Polaroid" whereas the HTC PPC camera is
completely worthless. I doubt most manufacturers even bother testing
these things- I think HTC just sticks a relatively clear piece of
plastic in front of a CCD sensor and proclaims twice the pixels of
last years model. Supposedly various software updates have
"improved" the camera in my model, but frankly I've never tried any.
I figure the world is far better off with one less crappy camera in
use! ;-)

--

"I don't need my cell phone to play video games or take pictures
or double as a Walkie-Talkie; I just need it to work. Thanks for
all the bells and whistles, but I could communicate better with
ACTUAL bells and whistles." -Bill Maher 9/25/2003

Todd Allcock

2007-09-12, 3:33 pm

At 12 Sep 2007 02:06:59 -1000 Mitch wrote:

> He claimed it was nearly the same size as an iPhone. It's apparently
> six times bigger.