David W Studeman <eat_your_own_spam@hormel.com> wrote:

> Apple really didn't invent anything.

well, they were the first to have a full web browser in a cell phone,
first to have multi-touch (similar of how people used computers before
apple made the mouse popular - it's the same level of advancement) first
to make a thin, huge screen, light device that has incredible battery
life. first one to put an iPod in a smartphone. first to figure out
smooth syncing on a phone to a computer, first to make typing on a flat
screen seem natural and accurate. first to use a "single button" on a
smartphone device making it far easier to use. first to tie together all
applications in a consistent way. but yes, other than that, they
invented nothing.

> Just marketed ideas, some dating back
> to the late 60's.

apple hasn't done a lot of marketing with the iphone, mostly the
"news/hype" comes from how great the iphone actually is. they hit a home
run by doing the hard work up front, then the product sells itself. no
other company can do that since they don't have the deep technical
resources like apple has.

yes, i agree many of these "ideas" have been around for decades, but
apple has a knack of making them into a usable "product"... nobody else
seems to be able to do that.

> Your real browser as it were, is based on KHTML which
> belongs to the KDE community. I couldn't consider a browser, regardless of
> rendering engine, being viewed on a screen only a tiny fraction the area of
> a typical 19" monitor, "real" browsing.

ah, iPhone's Safari while based on KHTML is a far cry from what is
available in the Linux world, they don't have WebKit, they don't have
high resolution screens, they don't have core graphics, etc. The iPhone
was the first to do a Web Browser correctly on a phone because of
Apple's in house talents, nothing relating to KHTML.

Multi-Touch is a marvel of modern man, sure it's a HUGE screen for a
smartphone, but Apple uses Multi-Touch in a way that with just your
fingers you can see, work, read an entire page with ease. No other cell
company will be allowed to do this for 17 years. So Apple basically owns
the browsing world on small screens for all that time.

> As far as wifi, the reason it typically draws less current is because most
> of them put out less than 100mw and you need to be within 500 feet of a
> Latte as it were for it to do any good. Cellular devices typically can
> output ten times that at 850mhz and twenty times that on 1.9ghz. There is
> no free lunch here. Power dissipation in watts is power dissipation and it
> does not matter how you arrived at a specific power dissipation. Of course
> if you are closer to a cell tower, the tower controls the output of your
> device and throttles it back. Translation: In a weaker area, you will use
> more battery power. With WiFi, it won't use much power because it doesn't
> have it to use in the first place. I do like the WiFi and the SIP phone
> feature of my chosen Multimedia Cellular device though so I'm not totally
> bashing WiFi.

Yes, but the density of WiFi is increasing far faster than Cell Towers,
so it's easy to see that the Cell World is obsolete in 10 years.
Companies like FON are totally making Cell Companies obsolete.

http://www.fon.com/en/info/whatsFon

> Seeing as how the rate of change is quite high these days, was 70% a year
> back in the 70's and I'm sure it is mind numbingly fast these days, there
> is no accurate way to predict what will be in vogue for the next decade or
> more and nothing that is used in the iPhone is earth shattering, it is a
> collection of existing technology with a marketing trademark slapped on it
> and a HUGE advertising budget.

We haven't seen much iphone marketing coming from Apple, sure some TV
commercials, but most of the "advertising" comes from people that own
them. It's a huge leap for everyone in the world, once people use them
they become a free advertising machine... just how it should be. Apple
simply builds the best smartphone on the market by far, the rest is free.

> To me, if it had a holographic virtual
> screen and virtual keyboard as well as virtual touch on the virtual screen
> in thin air rather than on the physical device itself, THEN it would be
> revolutionary. The problem with all these small multimedia gadjets is that
> you are limited to real estate a third the size of a paperback book, sorry
> but this won't do.

apple has been working on holography for decades so you'll see it when
it's ready. but apple was the first to create a usable virtual keyboard,
use gestures to move around, etc. yes, yes... the fantasy of air touch
is fine, or pure voice recogontion even better. but those aren't ready
for prime time, the only thing we do know is apple will be the first to
bring it to market on a mass scale.

the iPhone screen is H U G E - biggest of any smartphone to size ratio,
so while it appears you haven't yet touched an iPhone, you will soon and
then understand why the world is all going to the iPhone as the primary
pocket sized communication device.

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