The Apple iPhone/ Is There A "Smarter" Smart Phone

[Steve Williams]

To discuss smart phones IMO is to discuss the Apple iPhone and anything else is just a wannabe.

Until the release of the iphone, I used throughout my professional years the standard Motorola flip phone which served its purpose well, specifically to dial and receive calls. I thought my son and all of his friends were nuts when they went so ga-ga about the iphone. I just couldn't understand why anyone would want to have a phone that would do anything beyond placing and receiving calls. Was I mistaken. I am presently on my 3rd iPhone iteration. How amazing this device is, a computer which is internet accessible that can also place and receive calls. This phone only continues to get better. My son is an Apple Developer and writes .api and is hoping to release his own app in the next few months with the release of OS4.

If there is a downside to the iphone and other smart phones for that matter, it is the size of the keyboard. Even in landscape mode the keyboard is such that with my finger size i am always hitting the key next to the one I want and am needing to make corrections.

Well there is a solution to this and that is the new iPad. The key board is much larger and works well for me. Now if Steve Jobs puts an iPhone in the iPad, then he's onto something big.

Any one else have thoughts about smartphones. My wife uses a Blackberry through her work. All I can say is that you need toothpicks for fingers because the keys are so small I cannot even see them let alone type with them

 

[amirm]

Reading your post confirms once more the incredible marketing power Apple has to sell a large makeover of a concept as a new invention! Everything you list that you do on your iPhone, I have been doing for years before iPhone came out. As with portable music players before the iPod came out, Apple's innovations are around taking an existing concept and taking it to the next level. My touchscreen Windows Mobile phone that predated iPhone was extremely buggy in its core functionality (making phone calls), and required a stylus to operate its touchscreen. It had no app store although Verizon offered one.

Talking about what is wrong with iPhone, the biggest is AT&T. Where I am typing this at our vacation house, Verizon voice signal level is near excellent and my Verizon data card achieves better than 500 kbps. In sharp contrast, AT&T gets zero, let me repeat, zero bars for both data and voice. Yes, I am not in hugely populated area but still, that is an amazing difference in coverage. Verizon ads are right. We used to be AT&T customers and hated the service to boot. So you have the best phone combined with the worst carrier. Our entire extended family has been on Verizon and due to savings in minutes from calling each other, switching to AT&T simply is not an option putting aside the better service. My family has various forms of web phones by the way and they are quite happy with them.

Second thing wrong is the strict control that Apple exerts over the device. They control who gets on the phone and who doesn't. Yes, carriers have done this in the past but Apple should not enjoy a dominant position on the phone yet control what can get on it. Example? Where is Adobe flash?

Third thing is an issue at least until 4.0 comes out which is lack of multi-tasking. My Google Droid Motorola phone is fully multi-tasking as any modern operating system should be. This is important for many applications from audio streaming in the background to home automation.

As such as I find Android OS full of bugs, I am hoping Google gets religion and really moves the quality up and give Apple serious competition. They are the opposite of Apple in allowing freedom of developers to put what they like on the phone. Indeed, much of what Apple is putting in 4.0 is from fear of Android OS getting ahead of it in functionality.

So I would say the whole story with i* products from Apple is bitter sweet. Consumers are buying the products in millions, not realizing that if the iron fist that Apple has put all other monopolists to shame. A little bit of awareness would not hurt there .

 

[Steve Williams]

As to AT&T service coverage you are right on with your thoughts. It is horrible with frequent dropped calls where I live. Having said that I still feel that the iphone is still the leader of the pack. I have played with OS4 on my son's iphone and yes it does multitasking BUT it sure slows down processing
Now Amir, I sense you speaking with your Microsoft hat on when you speak of the marketing power of Apple which frequently can be oppressive on the part of Apple

 

[amirm]

Now Amir, I sense you speaking with your Microsoft hat on when you speak of the marketing power of Apple which frequently can be oppressive on the part of Apple

Yes, having lived inside Microsoft and tried to work with Apple, I can tell you that they make Microsoft look like Angels.

BTW, I am typing this on Chrome Browser and my phone is Motorola Droid. So little of Microsoft religion is stuck in me these days .

 

[RBFC]

I looked at the smart phones and had trouble with the touch screen. Having larger fingers, I found them unusable as a keyboard. I'm sure interested, but haven't seemed to find what I need yet. I'll be watching this thread.

Thanks,

Lee

 

[Steve Williams]

I looked at the smart phones and had trouble with the touch screen. Having larger fingers, I found them unusable as a keyboard. I'm sure interested, but haven't seemed to find what I need yet. I'll be watching this thread.

Thanks,

Lee

glad I'm not the only one with big fingers. The keyboard drives me nuts

 

[rsbeck]

There may have been portable music players before the ipod, but where are they now?

Virtually everything now copies the ipod user interface -- it was a revolution.

A small revolution, but a revolution none-the-less. It was like finding your sunglasses on top of your head.

As soon as you saw the ipod, you thought, "of course, this is how it should be done."

And it's not like every other engineer on the planet wasn't working to solve that puzzle.

Apple found the sunglasses while the others were still looking.

Somebody once said "the marketing is the carnival ride, the product is just the souvenir."

I think there is a lot of merit to that statement, but it also misses some of the point.

Before ipod decimated the market, there was something called the iriver, which was very similar.

All you had to do was watch someone use the two products.

People got involved with the ipod, it intrigued and tickled them, they were struck by its intuitive innovations.

It was a damn good souvenir.

I see the same thing with the i-phone and no, I don't use one, but my wife and daughter do.

People that enjoy Apple's products really enjoy them.

They've nailed it again.

 

[rsbeck]

Okay, I'll join the meeting.

Hi, I'm Rob and I, too, have big fingers and -- yes -- it's the thing that makes the i-phone hard for me to use.

But.....the real reasons I don't switch to the iphone are;

1) If I could get on the internet anywhere with a device I could keep in my pocket, there is a very real danger that I would never interact with an actual human again.

2) I don't tend to text much and I stay off the phone as much as I possibly can.

3) I don't even like it that you can't get a cell-phone without a camera anymore. If they made a cell-phone with a rotary dial, I might be the first in line to buy one. In this one area, I am something of a luddite, if it is possible to use cell-phone and luddite in the same sentence. I just want the most basic cell-phone made.

I realize, though, that I do not represent a large portion of the market for cell-phones. I also realize that my wife and daughter do -- they are the market. My teenage son just wants a cell-phone that looks like someone in the military might carry it. Although he doesn't represent the market, either, he represents enough of it, apparently, because damn if there isn't a cell-phone made just for guys like him. Final point, I asked him when the time comes to get the next cell-phone, what will it be? Guess what? The iphone.

 

[amirm]

Big fingers or not, you owe it to yourself to get an "app" phone. Today, I was trying to align the antenna for my media center PC. I go on tvfools.com, look up the compass directions for the stations in Seattle. Then I pop the compass app on my Android phone and while standing next to the antenna, I align the thing. Next, we want to dig some clams at the beach. Tide Chart program comes to rescue telling us the low tide. My brother then asks how far away we are from the pacific ocean, I pull up Google Earth. This, on top of being able to tell the driver in LA which route to take that has less traffic as I watch free real-time traffic mapping from Google. When even slightly bored, I pull up NPR's app which gives me the top headlines in both US and technology. It can also stream NPR audio programming but text is good enough to learn something when I have a couple of minutes to kill.

Loose human touch? Not really. You become a much more productive person. And happier for it . And yes, I too can't quite type on the touchscreen but Google voice does wonders. And I really mean it. I can pronounce my last name which does not appear in any dictionary yet it finds me on the phone and online. Best voice recognition I have ever seen. And did I say it is free to use?

So guys, quit procrastinating or making excuses. Go get one.

 

[rsbeck]

When my brother asks how far we are from the Pacific ocean, I just tilt my gaze upwards for a few seconds, look like I'm doing some silent calculation and then say with an air of casual authority, "not too far." If I'm on vacation and high tide stops me from clamming, I do something else for awhile. Work on a puzzle or take a nap. I never tell cabdrivers which route to take. I'm too busy daydreaming. As for procrastination, I'm going to stop doing that.....eventually. I went to the bookstore to get a book called How To Stop Procrastinating, but I bought some comic books instead. I figured I could always get that book next time.

See -- I don't need an app phone. I got it all covered.

On the other hand, if I had something I could keep in my pocket that enabled me to access the internet, my brother would ask me about the Pacific Ocean about four times before I'd finally look up, irritated, and say, "what?" Clamming? My family would all be at the water's edge, digging away, filling their buckets, calling to me to come join them and I would be looking up from my app phone saying, "I'll be there in a minute."

See -- I really don't need an app phone.

 

[amirm]

Isn't nice that the whole world doesn't have the same view about everything?

That said, anyone who has a computer, is addicted to forums, will want to have an app phone. Half the time I am checking on the status of my subscribed threads from my phone. So something tells me there is one in your future, whether you buy the religion or not right now .

 

[rsbeck]

You must have a crystal ball app.

 

[RBFC]

Amir,

Coming from someone whose phone is very basic, it is daunting to consider the use of a smartphone. How much of the capability would one not even figure out how to use? Having never used a touchscreen, except for early LG model demo at the Verizon store (at which I couldn't type reliably), I'm not sure it's going to be an easy transition. I would like to see a thread with "for Dummies" level explanations of how to use the features of a smartphone, what Skype is, etc. Perhaps that would ease my apprehension.

Lee

 

[Albertporter]

I've used cell phones for my business since 1985. I still have the same phone number issued during that first install at Southwest Bell Mobile systems. Back then the phone company actually did the automotive installs and guaranteed workmanship and voice quality.

Since then they've changed names at least three times but it's the same SW Bell / AT&T personalities as always, both good and bad.

My first phone was a Oki dash mount with 5 number memory, it was installed in my Ford van, complete with a special run direct to the battery post (due to current draw) and required a roof antenna. Cost was about $2500.00 if I remember, which was a lot of money in 1985, not to mention the .45 cents a minute to use with the meter running as soon as the phone rang on the receiving end :^).

I can't tell you how many phones I've owned since then, but Kenwood, Motorola, Palm and Samsung come to mind immediately and currently I've joined the masses with my iPhone. Of all the phones I owned, the Palm was probably the closest to my iPhone. Palm had internet access, an appointment book with alarms, calendars, games and calculators to name but a few of the hundreds of apps.

The iPhone is slicker than the Palm, voice quality is probably about the same but certainly voice quality of all these tiny phones suck compared to my original Oki and the two or thee Motorola analog phones that followed.

Sitting still in your vehicle there was NO difference in sound quality between the old powerful 6 watt analog phones and the hard land line at my photo studio. Can't say that was true everywhere but it sure was true of service here in Dallas.

I'm happy with the iPhone, enjoy apps like SoundMeter, Urbanspoon, Weather Underground, Shazam, Compass and Level to name a few.

I do agree with Amirm about Apple playing close to the vest, they are very restrictive about software so they control their product and the product security. That being said, many kids jailbreak the iPhone and use on TMobile or Verizon as well as opening up possibilities to install unapproved software.

I've never owned a Windows machine, I've always owned Apple since my very first computer and they have always served me and my photo business well. That being said, I was very late adopting the iPhone, I remained loyal to Motorola, Palm and the Blackberry because they too have strengths and I was offended by the initial cost of the iPhone.

Of course now if your an AT&T customer they will all but give you an iPhone free so they can bill the hell out of you for use :^).

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

I have an EE and work around computers my whole working life.. My present business, is centered around computers for Physical Security, Communications and Business Systems. What Apple seems to have realized and that many inside the computer industry regularly to miss is the Human Interface. After a few minutes of tinkering with hem, most Apple's products simply make sense. There is a very difficult to describe , "rightness" about the color scheme, the fonts, the screens and the displays... it isn't that the others (computer manufacturers, software designer, etc) do not have great products.. They do but their interface is not as intuitive as it should be. We re-educate ourselves and ultimately use the technology but feting to use it is not easy and too many people are discouraged into using what they bought the item for in the first place... For the techies , it sounds easy , for most people .. not at all .
The iPhone is a good example of a well done interface, yes it could be better, it could run Flash but so far it does what it does in an elegant, attractive (that's the word) and efficient way.. People "dig" it, they "feel" it and it looks like Apple will sell a billion of these in the next 10 years ...

Franz

 

[RBFC]

I'm hearing that Apple will have their iPhone ready for Verizon Wireless in the fall. This will be huge for the iPhone, as Verizon is supposed to complete implementation of its 4G network by then. This will allow you to talk on the phone, surf the web, etc. at the same time like ATT's network right now.

I'm thinking of picking up the iPhone then, since I use Verizon. Until then, I'm going to start learning more about these smartphones so I can actually access its capabilities.

Lee

 

[Steve Williams]

I'm hearing that Apple will have their iPhone ready for Verizon Wireless in the fall. This will be huge for the iPhone, as Verizon is supposed to complete implementation of its 4G network by then. This will allow you to talk on the phone, surf the web, etc. at the same time like ATT's network right now.

I'm thinking of picking up the iPhone then, since I use Verizon. Until then, I'm going to start learning more about these smartphones so I can actually access its capabilities.

Lee

why Steve Jobs went with ATT as the sole carrier of the iphone is beyond me. The service is appalling with constant dropped calls in and around where I live. Sometimes I get no reception if I am in my kitchen but if I turn around and walk 3 feet the reception is fine.

I have heard the same as you Lee that Verizon il be the next up..

BTW, even if Verizon isn't a carrier you can always jail break your phone and unlock it to work with other carriers

 

[rsbeck]

The ATT service is the only thing my wife resents about her i-phone. She and my daughter switched from Verizon to ATT in order to use the i-phone.

My wife jokingly refers to it as the "I-can't-stay-connected-phone."

 

[amirm]

BTW, even if Verizon isn't a carrier you can always jail break your phone and unlock it to work with other carriers

Only if that carrier uses the same technology. Verizon's system is incompatible with AT&T so you can't jail break and use it there.

 

[Steve Williams]

I wasn't aware of that. I thought that this unlocks a phone so that it can be used by different carriers