iPhone doomed from the start?

[ray_gillespie]

I changed my mind! I am going to buy one and ship it to Iraq! Maybe it'll cheer them up. If not, they will blow it up and all will be well.

Hehe nice one

I can't believe how poor the support is on here for the iPhone. Then again...

I have no doubt that it'll be a flop based on the replies tech guys like yourselves have given. Poor Apple - here's hoping that MkII will be an improvement

 

[Aprox]

I think you guys are making a mistake by assuming that Apple is trying to reach the same demographic as the Smartphone. I don't remember what thread it was, but basically I said the same thing there. Apple is basically marketing a toy, a flashy toy with some business related functionality. So those of us that use Smartphones see nothing of value in this closed platform PDA/Smartphone style. It looks pretty, but other than that its crippled and not for us.

The iPhone is for people who want the flash and awe of a nice phone, more capable then your run of the mill cell phone but not need the pure utility of a business orientated smartphone or PDA.

I say it a lot better in the other thread... lemme see if i can find it. I'm having trouble typing what I'm thinking today.


Edit: Here it is....

http://forum.osnn.net/showpost.php?p=792831&postcount=12

 

[X-Istence]

I don't think the iPhone will be a flop. I believe that Apple will eventually open the platform up, but only after they find out how they can lock certain functionality down. The iPhone is not targeted at the smart phone market, even-though Steve did compare the iPhone to them. They are targeted at the people that currently carry around the following: a phone, and an iPod. Now they put two and two together, and made it one. (Ha, you thought I would say four )

We will see if it takes off, I know that many college level students here in Phoenix want one, especially the guys that go to UAT as well!

 

[LordOfLA]

Oh another reason I won't get one. The .EU carriers are refusing to take it because apple as yet is refusing to let them customise it as they want, like every other handset maker on the planet. If I want an unbranded (as in not carrier customised) phones I can think of far better options for my money.

 

[Sazar]

I don't think the iPhone will be a flop. I believe that Apple will eventually open the platform up, but only after they find out how they can lock certain functionality down. The iPhone is not targeted at the smart phone market, even-though Steve did compare the iPhone to them. They are targeted at the people that currently carry around the following: a phone, and an iPod. Now they put two and two together, and made it one. (Ha, you thought I would say four )

We will see if it takes off, I know that many college level students here in Phoenix want one, especially the guys that go to UAT as well!

I don't know X, Apple sure seems to be targeting the crowd that uses smart phones from their ads.

And Omar, do you think the iPhone looks better than the prada phone?

 

[Grandmaster]

I think you guys are making a mistake by assuming that Apple is trying to reach the same demographic as the Smartphone. I don't remember what thread it was, but basically I said the same thing there. Apple is basically marketing a toy, a flashy toy with some business related functionality. So those of us that use Smartphones see nothing of value in this closed platform PDA/Smartphone style. It looks pretty, but other than that its crippled and not for us.

The iPhone is for people who want the flash and awe of a nice phone, more capable then your run of the mill cell phone but not need the pure utility of a business orientated smartphone or PDA.

I say it a lot better in the other thread... lemme see if i can find it. I'm having trouble typing what I'm thinking today.


Edit: Here it is....

http://forum.osnn.net/showpost.php?p=792831&postcount=12

Word.

I don't know X, Apple sure seems to be targeting the crowd that uses smart phones from their ads.

And Omar, do you think the iPhone looks better than the prada phone?

I just looked it up on Google...looks like a iPhone ripoff. It's still pretty obviously, but it's still a ripoff.

So, yes, I do think the iPhone looks better than the Prada.

 

[dave holbon]

It’s a PDA with a mobile phone chip “cut and pasted” on the back of the motherboard. How long does the battery last I wonder when used as such?

PDA’s and mobile phones are due to become “one” anyway and this is not the first attempt but it’s about the cheapest, however my concern is at the other end of the spectrum, you know software “add ins”, working on any network anywhere and so on as it appears to me that this device is a backward step for the consumer in tying them to both a network and a single supplier. You might well get away with this on an IPOD but not with a two year contract and single service provider. To me this a vertical application a bit like the “blackberry” devices attempting to con you into a closed shop. Mind you that’s the state of the market for these types of devices anyway.

Lets wait a bit.

 

[madmatt]

Will it blend?

 

[Sazar]

I just looked it up on Google...looks like a iPhone ripoff. It's still pretty obviously, but it's still a ripoff.

So, yes, I do think the iPhone looks better than the Prada.

The prada was announced earlier and has been on the shelves selling longer (oh wait, the iphone is not even out yet) and the prada is the rip-off?



Coz apple announces it, no one else could possibly have made it before and it's unique?

:smoker:

-edit-

Btw, check this out.

http://www.mobileburn.com/review.jsp?Id=547

 

[Geffy]

some definite hostility towards apple here. Firstly the iPhone will be bought, by many many people. I think they are targetting the people who are put off smart phones by many of the offerings from BlackBerry, HTC and Palm for whatever reasons. Also its the "new toy" device, many people with disposable income will get it for just that reason. Give it one or two generations and it will be much better. WM 5 did not MS make in a day

Safari 3 has hit windows for one real purpose only. To enable poor Windows developers the ability to write "iPhone Apps". Admittely Apple is really touting Safari 3 as being the best thing ever, mind you FF1 had a huge ad campaign saying it was better than IE encouraging people to switch. Many people didnt like FF, didn't think it was better. I recall much the same kind of heated opinions about it back then. I would argue that Safari 3 is Apples first "real" application for Windows. QuickTime and iTunes were training apps which they could control more, they only do quite specific things, web browsers are actually very general in their use. People will spend large quantities of their time in a web browser these days, so much so that they can almost become a religion.
I commend apple for managing to get Safari 3 on windows, its a bit shaky on its feet like a newborn calf, but then so was Firefox in its infancy but they had the luxury of starting off in a pre 1.0 version which took much of the heat off them.

 

[Mastershakes]

but then changed your mind cos of the two year contract that comes with it ?

While I am a big fan of smartphones and happy to see people get one, this isn't really a smartphone is it?

Doesn't have WIFI built in, or removable SIM --- it's essentially useless.

Just to comment on the slight flame war in thread - I'm looking at this as a phone, not Apple.

 

[Sazar]

some definite hostility towards apple here. Firstly the iPhone will be bought, by many many people. I think they are targetting the people who are put off smart phones by many of the offerings from BlackBerry, HTC and Palm for whatever reasons. Also its the "new toy" device, many people with disposable income will get it for just that reason. Give it one or two generations and it will be much better. WM 5 did not MS make in a day

I think the hostility is primarily because of the way Apple conducts business and promotes its products, through gross mis-information.

I would feel the same way about Dell, HP, Sony, Microsoft and others, and I do.

I think the last time I had a massive rant about something was me going off in a balls to the wall diatribe re: Nvidia and their NV30 b.s. which STILL leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth. It's hard to redeem yourself when you have stooped so low already but they have done a great job.

Apple? Not so much.

Safari 3 has hit windows for one real purpose only. To enable poor Windows developers the ability to write "iPhone Apps". Admittely Apple is really touting Safari 3 as being the best thing ever, mind you FF1 had a huge ad campaign saying it was better than IE encouraging people to switch. Many people didnt like FF, didn't think it was better. I recall much the same kind of heated opinions about it back then. I would argue that Safari 3 is Apples first "real" application for Windows. QuickTime and iTunes were training apps which they could control more, they only do quite specific things, web browsers are actually very general in their use. People will spend large quantities of their time in a web browser these days, so much so that they can almost become a religion.

Honestly, I don't buy this point of view. FF had a decent product and the main hit against it (that continues) is its memory leaks. Speed was also a HUGE issue v/s IE6. It has good features but I didn't start using FF till ver 2.0 came out and the feature set made it somewhat competitive with IE7. I LOVE IE7 just from a user standpoint, it just works. But I like some of the extensions that FF2 offers (which are not implemented as well with IE).

Safari on the other hand is the re-invention of the wheel, except its a square instead of a circle.

Fwiw, I have purchased quicktime, I own the full version. I still think it is absolute crap and the feature-set sucks so bad that I shouldn't have purchased it (useless buy) BUT it sort of works half the time.

Itunes, I've had it on and off my system since it first came out and now I simply refuse to even consider it. If iTunes can make WMP11 look and feel like an efficient program, I rest my case.

Granted I am using WMP with Vista Ultimate, but as much as I hear against it, it WORKS for me, and works well and fast. iTunes, not so much.

Safari, it's a nightmare for me from a user perspective. When it works, I guess it does it's job but there was never a need to re-invent something. Why not use your own shell and implement it in a new o/s without forcing people to re-learn pretty much everything. FF shortcuts were initially quite different from IE and I had issues in re-learning because it was not an efficient or smooth transition. Now, FF and IE use many of the same short-cuts, makes it seamless for me to use one or the other.

Safari? Re-writing the book so to speak. And no back/forward buttons? I understand that most Apple users are stuck using a single click mouse but come-on.

I commend apple for managing to get Safari 3 on windows, its a bit shaky on its feet like a newborn calf, but then so was Firefox in its infancy but they had the luxury of starting off in a pre 1.0 version which took much of the heat off them.

I have seen far better beta's than this. For it to be called a beta, it will have most of the functioning items from the upcoming RTM version but it seems like Apple is going to have to completely add new stuff here.

Granted IE and FF both have added stuff, but they were of a smaller nature. Safari needs a decent re-write of a lot of components.

---

Now, re: the iPhone. I like the concept, I like the features. I like the way it looks (I also really like the Blackjack ) but why position it as something it is not?

And why the proprietary junk? Look @ the prada phone for example. What carrier limitations does it have? It has it's own issues but it's almost the same kind of product as the iPhone (which has more features). No memory card slot? Why? Even the Prada, which seems smaller, has one (although no hard drive).

It will probably succeed, I would be shocked if it did not. But the software usage and the proprietary crap will cap the success more so than I would have though possible. It certainly has prevented me from switching to the product, as much as I was intrigued by it.

 

[Geffy]

I think the hostility is primarily because of the way Apple conducts business and promotes its products, through gross mis-information.

I would feel the same way about Dell, HP, Sony, Microsoft and others, and I do.

I think the last time I had a massive rant about something was me going off in a balls to the wall diatribe re: Nvidia and their NV30 b.s. which STILL leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth. It's hard to redeem yourself when you have stooped so low already but they have done a great job.

Apple? Not so much.

To a degree I do agree that Apples' marketing department go a might overboard, and Steve Jobs is a fairly strong personality to handle which probably has an effect on the marketing department. Is Safari 3 the best thing ever? Well yes (on the Mac). Windows I've still hardly played with it, but then my Parallels install dumps all URL clicks into the Mac side and Safari anyway so I don't use Firefox either. I use Firefox Mac for 1 purpose, Firebug, thats it.

You could easily argue that my having not used Safari/iTunes/QuickTime in Windows in many months would leave me unqualified to argue these points. QuickTime is shockingly poor and fits amazingly badly into the Windows scheme of things. iTunes is a fair memory hog on Win as well and it seems no one likes the new Windows browser on the block either.

I would have actually preferred it if WinSafari had been designed to fit in with Windows better but used WebCore and JavascriptCore (the frameworks Safari is built on) so the general effect of the rendering remained the same but the App fit in with the OS. Sadly neither Apple nor Microsoft can make an App which fits in with the others OS.

I am slightly heartened by the notice from the WebKit team that they are looking for QA and Software developers from a Windows background to help them improve WebKit on Windows and hopefully Safari as well. It may improve, couple revisions down the line you may even throw out your Firefox, who knows.

The pre 0.7 versions of FF were pretty poor, they had promise but there were plenty of neigh-sayers and detractors saying it will never take off and never take any market share from IE. Things changed.

Safari on the other hand is the re-invention of the wheel, except its a square instead of a circle.

I don't quite see how Safari is a re-invention of the wheel. The core engine wasn't grown at Apple. When they were first looking to write their own browser they looked at using the gecko rendering engine from Mozilla, but it was apparently too cluttered to extend as they needed while the Linux KDE projects KHTML engine fit better with their needs. All of their fixes, extensions and so on to the core have been nicely fed back into the KDE KHTML project as well.

Fwiw, I have purchased quicktime

I honestly feel your pain, though I never bought it I know what you mean.

Itunes, I've had it on and off my system since it first came out and now I simply refuse to even consider it. If iTunes can make WMP11 look and feel like an efficient program, I rest my case.

I came to Windows iTunes from Creative PlayCenter having owned a Nomad Zen prior to getting an iPod. Compared to that anything else just screams.

Safari, it's a nightmare for me from a user perspective. When it works, I guess it does it's job but there was never a need to re-invent something. Why not use your own shell and implement it in a new o/s without forcing people to re-learn pretty much everything. FF shortcuts were initially quite different from IE and I had issues in re-learning because it was not an efficient or smooth transition. Now, FF and IE use many of the same short-cuts, makes it seamless for me to use one or the other.

As you said Firefox used some pretty arcane shortcuts in the beginning, then it changed to fit in more with Windows. While I can't comment on the likelihood of this I would hope WinSafari would progress along a similar path.

Safari? Re-writing the book so to speak. And no back/forward buttons? I understand that most Apple users are stuck using a single click mouse but come-on.

Huh? I don't quite get this, the back/forward buttons are right up there with the address bar. It goes like this

Back | Forward | Reload | Add to Favorites | Submit Bug | Address Bar | Google Search

If you don't like it goto View > Customize Toolbar and change it, granted theres not a huge wide ranging scope of the changes you can make, but everything you should need for browsing is there.

also the whole Apple mice are only single click argument has been BS for at least the last year. All desktop Macs ship with a Mighty Mouse which has left/right/middle click, omnidirectional scroll wheel and all Mac laptops you can tap two fingers on the touchpad to right click and omnidirectional two finger scroll.

I have seen far better beta's than this. For it to be called a beta, it will have most of the functioning items from the upcoming RTM version but it seems like Apple is going to have to completely add new stuff here.

Granted IE and FF both have added stuff, but they were of a smaller nature. Safari needs a decent re-write of a lot of components.

Which components do you feel are lacking? What else should it be able to do that it doesn't do now?

Don't like the lack of borders, I personally find my eyes dropping off the bottom of the app sometimes, but never the sides. So turn on the status bar with View > Show Status bar.

There is one specific feature of Safari on both Windows and Mac which I feel both MSIE and Firefox are lacking. Not a day goes by where I don't use this and I've mentioned it before. Tab switch keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+[ and Ctrl+Shift+] for Windows, its actually Ctrl+{ and Ctrl+} but you need shift to get there), neither IE nor Firefox have something like this and it drives me up the wall every time I have to use Windows. Now at least I can have my familiar browser on Windows as well.

I'll concede that you arent likely to get many of your Firefox Extensions into Safari and Windows lacks the functionality to make use of a cool system called SIMBL which could potentially do it. But as a person who uses Safari everyday of his life, albeit on Mac, what exactly is it missing?

Just noticed which thread this is in, should really keep this to the windows safari beta thread, whupps

 

[Sazar]

To a degree I do agree that Apples' marketing department go a might overboard, and Steve Jobs is a fairly strong personality to handle which probably has an effect on the marketing department. Is Safari 3 the best thing ever? Well yes (on the Mac). Windows I've still hardly played with it, but then my Parallels install dumps all URL clicks into the Mac side and Safari anyway so I don't use Firefox either. I use Firefox Mac for 1 purpose, Firebug, thats it.

Haven't used a Mac in about 6 months. When I did, I was using FF, not Safari. From reading various threads on the net, it seems I am not alone in this

You could easily argue that my having not used Safari/iTunes/QuickTime in Windows in many months would leave me unqualified to argue these points. QuickTime is shockingly poor and fits amazingly badly into the Windows scheme of things. iTunes is a fair memory hog on Win as well and it seems no one likes the new Windows browser on the block either.

I use quicktime to attempt some video edits on particular files. Very hit and miss, whether it works or not.

I would have actually preferred it if WinSafari had been designed to fit in with Windows better but used WebCore and JavascriptCore (the frameworks Safari is built on) so the general effect of the rendering remained the same but the App fit in with the OS. Sadly neither Apple nor Microsoft can make an App which fits in with the others OS.

Microsoft's apps so far have not fit well with OSX? I though the office software was not that bad personally.

I am slightly heartened by the notice from the WebKit team that they are looking for QA and Software developers from a Windows background to help them improve WebKit on Windows and hopefully Safari as well. It may improve, couple revisions down the line you may even throw out your Firefox, who knows.

I have IE7, Opera and FF2 on my system right now. I keep staying with FF even with its faults, because of the customizations. Neither Opera or IE offer me the ability to integrate extensions (or widgets, or whatever) into the shell of the browser like on FF. This reason alone is why I will continue using FF. Safari also doesn't have this feature. Didn't have it on OSX, won't have it on Windows from the looks of it.

The pre 0.7 versions of FF were pretty poor, they had promise but there were plenty of neigh-sayers and detractors saying it will never take off and never take any market share from IE. Things changed.

That's the beauty of certain aspects of open-source. Good ideas will prevail.

I don't quite see how Safari is a re-invention of the wheel. The core engine wasn't grown at Apple. When they were first looking to write their own browser they looked at using the gecko rendering engine from Mozilla, but it was apparently too cluttered to extend as they needed while the Linux KDE projects KHTML engine fit better with their needs. All of their fixes, extensions and so on to the core have been nicely fed back into the KDE KHTML project as well.

I was speaking figuratively. Apple is positioning this as the next best thing in browsing. That, frankly, is a bold-faced LIE.

Heck, even FF looks like as on Vista unless I make some major changes to it but thats they key. I have the ability to make modifications. Safari offers what by way of customization to power users?

As you said Firefox used some pretty arcane shortcuts in the beginning, then it changed to fit in more with Windows. While I can't comment on the likelihood of this I would hope WinSafari would progress along a similar path.

Perhaps. But, FF was open-source. Safari? Not so much.

Huh? I don't quite get this, the back/forward buttons are right up there with the address bar. It goes like this

Back | Forward | Reload | Add to Favorites | Submit Bug | Address Bar | Google Search

If you don't like it goto View > Customize Toolbar and change it, granted theres not a huge wide ranging scope of the changes you can make, but everything you should need for browsing is there.

also the whole Apple mice are only single click argument has been BS for at least the last year. All desktop Macs ship with a Mighty Mouse which has left/right/middle click, omnidirectional scroll wheel and all Mac laptops you can tap two fingers on the touchpad to right click and omnidirectional two finger scroll.

You know, some mouse peripherals have a lovely back and front button on them too right?

It goes something like this.

Click the back button on the mouse, you go back a page. Click the forward button, you go forward a page. If you don't like it, you can go to your mouse properties and change the way it operates in the application. :smoker:

Yah, so apparently Apple doesn't know that.

Which components do you feel are lacking? What else should it be able to do that it doesn't do now?

Don't like the lack of borders, I personally find my eyes dropping off the bottom of the app sometimes, but never the sides. So turn on the status bar with View > Show Status bar.

There is one specific feature of Safari on both Windows and Mac which I feel both MSIE and Firefox are lacking. Not a day goes by where I don't use this and I've mentioned it before. Tab switch keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+[ and Ctrl+Shift+] for Windows, its actually Ctrl+{ and Ctrl+} but you need shift to get there), neither IE nor Firefox have something like this and it drives me up the wall every time I have to use Windows. Now at least I can have my familiar browser on Windows as well.

I don't understand what you are saying here.

Are you suggesting that you can't switch from one tab to another in IE or FF?

Try this.

Ctrl + the number of the tab (if you have multiple open). Or Ctrl + Tab to navigate. I don't know about you, but for me, the tab's in FF and IE are MUCH better than the crap in Safari. I personally think that, sans extensions, IE7 is MUCH superior in terms of tabbed browsing. Opera is a close second.

I also like the fact that I can assign a page to display when I am opening a fresh/new tab in IE. Plus, the favorites center in IE is MUCH better than any other browser (by default) save Opera.

Safari's favorite's center seems like it was designed by a retarded monkey. No offense to retarded monkey's intended.

I'll concede that you arent likely to get many of your Firefox Extensions into Safari and Windows lacks the functionality to make use of a cool system called SIMBL which could potentially do it. But as a person who uses Safari everyday of his life, albeit on Mac, what exactly is it missing?

Weather, clocks, gmail, Stylish, just to name a few, all integrated into the physical body of the browser rather than some retarded, floating widget or some such.

Once you use these items, you will know what I mean.

Just noticed which thread this is in, should really keep this to the windows safari beta thread, whupps

True, but seeing as how the apparent route to using an iPhone is through Safari, I guess we could have a chat about it here.

I'll cut paste this over in the other thread so we can keep this topic there though

 

[Steevo]

Will it blend?

That is the best question in this thread.

 

[Sazar]

Yes

 

[NetRyder]

Some interesting points so far. I think the answer to the question really depends on what you mean by "doomed."

The Mac has had single-digit market share for more than a decade now. Does that make it a flop? That depends on how you look at it. It's still apparently a profitable business for Apple, which is why they've stood by it all this time. The iPod, on the other hand, took the market by storm, and has become the king of the digital music space, making it more of a "success" from a conventional point of view.

I think the limitations of the first-generation iPhone will make it more like the Mac than the iPod - a profitable business for Apple, but not something that will take over the market, at least not in the short term.

But as Geffy said, it has the potential to get much better as Apple gets a feel for the market and pays attention to feedback from early adopters. Nobody thought that Microsoft would become a significant competitor to Palm when they first started out either, yet Palm sells phones running Windows Mobile today. At the same time, Microsoft, Nokia, and others in the smartphone space are certainly not resting on their laurels - there's lots of innovation going on at these companies as well, so it's going to be an uphill battle for Apple. Nothing wrong with having another competitor in the market though; it just makes everyone put in their best.

I personally don't have any interest in switching from WM-based devices to the iPhone at this point. The lack of third-party app support (the "web-SDK" is laughable, at best), and the restrictive carrier lock-in are the two biggest deal-breakers for me.

But then not everyone thinks like many of us here do. Never underestimate the power of flashy looks and trendiness - you just have to look back at the popularity of the RAZR to see that. The iPhone could very well be the next RAZR for those with a bit more pocket change to spare.

 

[Aprox]

But then not everyone thinks like many of us here do. Never underestimate the power of flashy looks and trendiness - you just have to look back at the popularity of the RAZR to see that. The iPhone could very well be the next RAZR for those with a bit more pocket change to spare.

I think you hit the nail on the head there Net. Remember though, when RAZR first came out it was pretty expensive itself. I think in the 300 - 400$ range if I remember correctly. Regardless, being that it is a apple product it will have some blind followers buy it just because of that alone. So I think you might be correct in it becoming a sort of fashion statement of sorts.

 

[madmatt]

You dudes have too much time on your hands. The posts in this thread are longer than a Perris vs. Patriot debate (sorry Perris).

 

[X-Istence]

Course, Apple products take the cake when it comes to time spent on them.