The iPhone thread Options

[Seeker]

Who the fuck wants an iPhone? Here's a list of stuff it DOESN'T HAVE.

1. Songs as Ringtones
2. Games
3. Any flash support
4. Instant Messaging
5. Picture messages (MMS)
6. Video recording
7. Voice recognition or voice dialing
8. Wireless Bluetooth Stereo Streaming (A2DP)
9. One-size-fits-all headset jack (May have to buy an adapter for certain headphones)
10. 3G (EV-DO/HSDPA)
11. GPS
12. A real keyboard
13. Removable battery
14. Expandable Storage
15. Direct iTunes Music Store Access (Over Wi-Fi or EDGE)

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/apple/what-the-...have-272571.php

Apple and the iPhone release is analogous to Sony and the PS3. Sony announced that they could release a total piece of shit that doesn't even play games, call it a PS3, and still sell millions because of fanbois. Apple is releasing a steaming pile of shit and all the fanbois are going crazy over it. Same scenario, different company/product.

This post has been edited by pebkac: Oct 5 2007, 09:08 PM

[cmac]

from apple:

A new Apple-designed application on iPhone will wirelessly stream YouTube’s content

To achieve higher video quality and longer battery life on mobile devices, YouTube has begun encoding their videos in the advanced H.264 format, and iPhone will be the first mobile device to use the H.264-encoded videos.

With its advanced Safari browser, iPhone lets you see web pages the way they were designed to be seen, then easily zoom in by simply tapping on the multi-touch display with your finger.

does your phone show techsans like you're looking at it right now? or is it some broken down ie version.

i use myspace as an example because cingular (at&t whatever) makes you purchase a subscription to use myspace on a normal smartphone (blackberry, etc)

as far as edge goes, i use the wifi when it's available, and the edge when i'm on the road. i'll gladly sacrifice 3 seconds when loading a web page, e-mail etc. for a tremendously better user experience than some of the other phones out now.

i had the blackberry pearl before the iphone and i loved it when i had it. now that i have the iphone, i see that the pearl's user interface was crap.

[impala454]

A new Apple-designed application on iPhone will wirelessly stream YouTube’s content

what do you believe will be different about this? "wirelessly stream" is the same thing as when you look at it from the web page... whether it's an application or a browser, all you're doing is streaming the content from their server...

iPhone will be the first mobile device to use the H.264-encoded videos.

this is absolutely false. the H.264 as they seem to have coined as a buzz word recently is simply referring to MPEG-4, which has been around for almost 5 years. MPEG-4 viewers have been available for windows CE and WM5 devices for a long time. I personally have had MPEG-4 videos on my phone since I got it last year. Windows media player does not natively play them, but them stating that the iphone is the first mobile device to play them is wrong.

With its advanced Safari browser, iPhone lets you see web pages the way they were designed to be seen, then easily zoom in by simply tapping on the multi-touch display with your finger.

yes, if you want to view full sized web pages, it is easier on the iphone. it's a bigger screen than most, and the zoom thing helps for sure. if you're connected through wifi it's a great browser. but any place where I don't have wifi, I'd much rather view the mobile version of the site (whether on an iphone or wm5 device).

from apple:
does your phone show techsans like you're looking at it right now? or is it some broken down ie version.

yes, albeit on a smaller screen. basically, if you took your browser on your computer and resized it so that it was about 320 pixels wide (really skinny). most phones have a mobile browser. this browser will show any web page, but common web sites like yahoo, google, weather sites, etc will have a mobile version, often without ads, less graphics, etc. some of them will look at your browser and automatically show you the mobile version of the site. imho this is a much better way, as most websites nowadays have a lot of unnecessary graphics, and if I'm viewing a site from my phone, I just want to get the score, see the radar, read my gmail, re-bid on the ebay item, etc.

i use myspace as an example because cingular (at&t whatever) makes you purchase a subscription to use myspace on a normal smartphone (blackberry, etc)

I don't really use myspace much, but I use facebook some. they have a mobile site, m.facebook.com. while you could load theh full facebook site on your iphone, you'd probably still want to use the mobile site. it's way faster, fits the entire thing on your screen with no zooming, and presents a more compact, sensible page for a small screen interface.

as far as edge goes, i use the wifi when it's available, and the edge when i'm on the road. i'll gladly sacrifice 3 seconds when loading a web page, e-mail etc. for a tremendously better user experience than some of the other phones out now.

i guess 'tremendously better experience' is pretty objective. take this site that I use every day for instance:
http://traffic.houstontranstar.org/layers/

vs their mobile site:

http://traffic.houstontranstar.org/mobile/maps.aspx

now say you wanted to view this site on your iphone. the larger version is about 800px wide and a couple hundred KB, the smaller is about 200px wide and about 20KB. i'm not comparing or saying my phone is better or anything, but which site makes more sense to load? load the large one and zoom out, or just load the one designed to fit the screen and use up less space?

i had the blackberry pearl before the iphone and i loved it when i had it. now that i have the iphone, i see that the pearl's user interface was crap.

just because something new comes out, it doesn't mean the old one is crap. yes, the iphone's interface is very nice, but useability is what matters most to me. to be honest I rarely even look at my phone's screen. if I need to go to the transtar site while i'm in the truck, i press a button on my headset and say "open transtar", wait about 2 seconds and then look at the screen. if i'm going to listen to music on my phone, i don't really care to see all the album covers and flip through them, i just wanna start up a playlist.

I will say the one thing on the iphone I like the most, is the 'physics' behind its scrolling. the ability to scroll by swiping your finger across the screen is pretty nice.

overall i think the iphone is a great device. it's very useful for those who want to combine their ipod and phone into one piece, view web pages on the go, etc. it's just not for me. i prefer a device i can write software for, add other 3rd party software to, view whatever music/videos/media i want to. for windows mobile and to an extent palm OS, you can find a huge base of people developing software, games, utilities, even home brewed ROMs to replace the entire OS. the "pocket pc" devices are essentially just that, a tiny PC, much of their hardware and programming is just a smaller, miniaturized version of what sits on your desk. the iphone seems to be more of a one off device designed from scratch.