ZnU <znu@fake.invalid> wrote
> Rod Speed <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote
>> ZnU <znu@fake.invalid> wrote

>>> It might take a couple of years and a couple of
>>> price cuts. It did for the iPod. But it will happen.

>> I doubt it with market penetration, essentially because a phone
>> is much more locked to the telco than a media player ever is
>> and most care about what their phone plan is costing them, it aint
>> just the sticker price on the hardware that matters with phones.

> The major carriers in the US are all fairly competitive on price.

Not necessarily on what they offer with a particular phone tho.

> AT&T isn't at a particular disadvantage there.

Some dont get effective coverage from them tho.

You dont get that effect with media players.

>>>> And those who want to be able to do email etc mostly
>>>> want a real keyboard, not a touchscreen one too.

>>> Doubt it.

>> Have a look at the high end phones.

> Um. Well, yes, if you assume that people want what
> existing phones offer, and not what the iPhone offers,

Wasnt doing that, just looking at what the manufacturers of those
phones have researched what the buyers want feature wise.

> then of course the iPhone won't amount to much. But since the issue
> we're discussing is, basically, whether people want the iPhone,

That wasnt what was being discussed in this sub thread.

> assuming at the start that they don't isn't a valid thing to do.

Pity I never did that.

>>> And it's not clear to me that the on-screen keyboard doesn't work
>>> just as well as a physical keyboard. If you mash a couple of adjacent
>>> keys on a physical keyboard, it has no idea which one you were
>>> trying to hit. If you do the same on touch-screen keyboard, it can
>>> probably figure out where the center of your finger was and recover.

>> That doesnt really happen enough to matter much.

>> The problem is more that the screen is filled with the
>> touchscreen keyboard on those tiny screens and so you
>> cant read the email you are replying too at the same time.

>> Doesnt matter with a GPS where you are only entering a street
>> and town name and you get to select from a list once you have
>> typed a couple of letters, but email cant be done like that.

> OK, but unlike for the Blackberry, e-mail is not the "killer app" for the iPhone.

There is no "killer app" for the iPhone, there are hordes of phones
with media players and cameras that have been around for years now.

> The media player function is,

Nope, because that wont kill a damned thing given that there are hordes of
phones with media players and cameras that have been around for years now.

> and to a lesser extent probably the mapping and web browsing functions.

More everything in the one device, mapping, browsing, email, camera, media player etc.

And thats where the iphone may well fail, when you cant run Quicken etc on it etc.

> Not to mention just the slick all-around UI, for everything
> from SMS to contact management to conference calling.

Sure, but the UI on most phones is already quite adequate in those areas.

> All of these benefit from the fact that almost the entire
> face of the device is covered with a screen, instead of
> half of if being taken up by a physical keyboard.

There's plenty of other phones like that now.

>>> Even most unlikely concept product UI demos one sees don't look as good.

>> My main reservation is with the the two finger approach,
>> cant see that being too viable in a phone where you mostly
>> hold it in one hand and use the other on the screen.

>> Maybe you wont do the two finger stuff enough to matter tho.

> The two-finger stuff is mostly used for resizing images
> and such, using a pinching motion with the thumb and
> index finger of the same had. So, it's fine one-handed.

Maybe.

>>>> And virtually everyone didnt already have a media player at
>>>> the time that the ipod showed up. Virtually everyone already
>>>> has a cellphone now and most of those already have a media
>>>> player now too if they use one much. Hordes of them have a
>>>> media player/phone/camera combined already.

>>> However, most of those people don't use the media player
>>> functions of their phones, because they use iPods instead.

>> That is just plain wrong when their phone has a media player.

> Not in my experience, it's not. Many phones sold these days have a
> music player function. Most users don't even know their phone has it.

Oh bullshit.

> And even if they did, they wouldn't want to use a media
> player that didn't sync with iTunes automatically, since
> that's where they probably have their music.

Pity about the convenience of both in the one device.

You're completely off with the fairys on this one.

>>> Plus, people replace their phone and media
>>> player every couple of years anyway.

>> Sure, thats certainly one thing in Apple's favour, but you dont see
>> too many change platform completely. Thats what fucked the Mac.

> Most people don't really think of mobile phones as "platforms", though.

You just said they do with your iTunes comment above.

> Switching from a Motorola phone (or whatever) to an
> iPhone isn't nearly like switching from Windows to the Mac.

In some ways its worse because the UI is so different
between a Motorola and a Nokia for example.

> The vast majority of users have no third-party applications at all

Correct. But plenty do on their high end phones,
particularly stuff like TomTom 6 and Quicken etc.

> and no data beyond contact information and photos, all of which can be
> ported over (well, if their current phone can sync it to a computer at all).

It remains to be seen how bullet proof that is with the iphone.

Bet it turns out to be the area with by far the most problems.

>>> And the iPhone isn't all that expensive compared with the cost of an iPod + a phone.

>> Thats not a valid comparison, you should be comparing it with other media player phones.

> The market has clearly expressed that "media player" does not equal "iPod".

Not with combined media players and phones it hasnt.

> I suppose we could compare it to all the other iPod phones.

Nope.

> After Apple makes more models. <g>

Even later to market. Bet its too late and they never do as well as the ipod did.