At 11 Jul 2008 01:06:24 -0400 David G.Imber wrote:
> So I started asking about the iPhone, and boy did I hit a wall
> o' vitriol.
Yeah, but you have to separate the vitriol vs. the Phone, from the vitriol
vs. the iPhanboys.
I like the device itself- it's slick, snappy, and a well designed piece of
hardware, IMO. However, I wouldn't buy one personally for a variety of
reasons (I use my phone for a variety of things the iPhone doesn't handle
or handle well; editing Office files, remote desktop, GPS navigation,
replying to this post of yours with an NNTP client, etc.) but I don't
dislike the device itself.
What I (and many others here, seemingly) tire of, are the Jobovah's
Witlesses, like our buddy "Oxford" and his nom de jours who continually
crosspost drivel about how the iPhone will put Nokia, RIM, Verizon, Sprint
and probably even Chuck E. Cheese's out of business, and reposting every
blog entry ever written about the iPhone as if it's front-page news.
("This app turns your iPhone into a TV remote and a flashlight!" I guess
RCA and Eveready are going to go bankrupt now too!")
It's simple trolling, and we fall for it hook, line, and sinker, but one
has to have hobbies, right? ;-) (Personally, I'm letting more of it slide
this year than I did last year..)
> In particular, people refer to it as a "toy". Now, let's see
> if we have our definitions right. The Easy Bake Oven is a toy, and I
> know this because you can't actually cook dinner with it. You can do a
> few tricks that are a little like cooking, but they're not. They're
> playing. It's a toy.
One could argue that the Easy Bake Oven is an excellent analogy to the
iPhone. By expending a lot of effort, you can make a small cute device
work like the tool it's emulating.
Take that toy, paint it black, silkscreen a half-eaten Apple on the back,
call it the iBake, and make sure the cake mixes can only be bought from
iTunes and Jobs could sell it for $99 at the next keynote, instead of the
$29 Hasbro gets for it in pink.
> I'm asking here in earnest: if the iPhone works as a
> telephone, gets your e-mail, etc., and does those things properly,
> where does the "toy" part enter the picture? Yes, it's cosmetically
> slick, and yes, it has various sorts of multimedia concerns that
> aren't strictly business. But if those things do not interfere with
> its functions as a tool, what actually makes it a toy? Sounds more to
> me like a phone w/benefits.
It is. What it isn't, IMO, (at least not yet- the 2.0 software and the app
store might change that eventually) is a "smartphone" or the "mobile
computing platform" that the press has made it out to be. It's more of a
"Savantphone." It does a few neat tricks very well- some better than any
other phone, but is amazingly clumsy at other tasks.
> What's more, let's be a little honest: Does a single month go
> by when there isn't a major tech article about the next "iPhone
> Killer"?
Of course. Part of that, though, is the press' need for a good story.
Apple, the "renegade" tech company tilting at Microsoft's juggernaut of a
windmill in the computer market, and owner of the PMP market, is going to
create a cellphone and change that industry forever! How will other
manufacturers react? It makes for a great story. A year later, six
million iPhones have been sold. A great start, particularly for a
comparitively overpriced, unsubsidized, handset, but the industry really
hasn't changed, except, perhaps, that all smartphone makers are seling more
high-end phones, perhaps from an Apple-led "high-tide-raises-all-boats"
effect, or perhaps Apple just hit the market with a good product at the
right moment- when a mature cellphone market's consumers finally wanted
more than simple calling and texting.
> It is clear that, like it or not, the iPhone has set a
> certain standard for style and functionality that everyone is trying
> to emulate or surpass.
> So far no one has.
Correct, if you're competing on style, which, frankly is a mistake. No one
is going to out iPhone the iPhone. I'm a Windows Mobile user and I cringed
when HTC pumped out their first iPhone-influenced models last year, like
the Touch. They mimicked the iPhone style by removing most of the device's
buttons! That's fine if your building a buttonless-UI'd device ground-up
like Apple did, but simply taking butons off an existing device-style to
look
"cool" makes it harder to use! It's like removing two rows of keys on your
PC keyboard to make it's footprint smaller! It might look good, but we may
need all 26 letters to get anything done!
To see an example of someone doing it right, look at RIM- they're still on
top of the smartphone heap, not because they've tried copying the iPhone,
but because they HAVEN'T. Surveys of iPhone owners (who, make no mistake,
overwhelmingly LOVE their iPhones) show that the "missing" feature most of
them wished the iPhone had was a physical keyboard, or at least a 12-key
phonepad. Well, who's the king of the keyboarded phone? Rather than
pumping out slick "me too" iPhoney clones, RIM has furiously been improving
their devices' form factors, media players and web browsing functions (the
things iPhone excels at) while keeping the parts of "Crackberry" their
addicts love; the e-mail and keyboards; in order to make a better
Blackberry- not a lousier iPhone!
> When Sanyo came out with its
> ludicrously-named Katana line (katana means sword) it was too obvious
> that it was trying to cash in on profile of the popular Razor (get
> it?).
Personally, I liked the name! Clever rip-off without being obvious (unless
you knew Japanese.) You've nailed another excellent analogy - the Katana
was commissioned by Sprint for the same reasons Verizon and Sprint
commissined the EnV and Instinct- to sell a "reasonable facsimile" of a
popular phone that was unobtainable to them due to an exclusivity
arrangement. (The Razr was a one-year exclusive deal, IIRC.) Sure, some
people will always insist on brand X, rather than brand Y- and they'll go
to AT&T for an iPhone regardless of how good an Instinct or EnV is, but
carriers know that a certain, and large segment of customers shop carrier
first, then device. For these customers, the Katanas, EnVs and Instincts
of the world will suffice.
> That has to be a comment on the fact that whatever Motorola was
> offering, people wanted it. Hello Samsung Instinct, et al. But the
> Razor wasn't derided as a toy or a gimmick because it did the job.
Actually, although wildly popular, it was originally derided in the trades
as extremely overpriced because it really didn't do anything other phones
didn't- it was a relatively featureless phone with one gimmick- it was
impossibly thin. (That was enough in those days!) It was $500, ensuring
that it's remarkable thinness would only grace the hands of the well-to-do
and tragically hip. A year later, it was $150, and it was no longer
impressive to whip it out at a fancy restaurant when the busboy also owned
one. (Similarly, the new $200 iPhone price-point will go a long way to
dull it's chic-factor!)
> If the iPhone can do its job, it's not a toy. Can someone tell
> me what I'm missing there?
Yep- what many of us are missing- a clear definition of what it's "job"
actually is. I've told this story before, but I'm a long time smartphone
user, first with Symbian then Windows Mobile. When those first iPhone ads
came out, showing the iPhone displaying the Pirates movie, which give the
unseen user a hankering for Calamari, so he switches to Google Maps and
finds a seafood joint and then takes a call, I assume we were all supposed
to think "Wow! A phone can do all that?" My wife, a technophobe, saw the
ad and said "what's the big deal- your phone does all that!" (Sadly, the
irony was that hers does as well, but she can't be bothered!)
But no one does marketing better than Apple- selling a slick, fun, easy to
use device for 30% more than the competition charges is what they do best,
and they did it with the iPhone.
But, to it's credit, it does those things it does well, easily and quickly-
I've got no argument there. But weirdly, there are the absolute head-
scratching omissions: no voice dialing? $20 phones do that these days! No
support for stereo bluetooth headsets on the priciest music phone on the
market? $99 Sony Walkman phones do that. A camera without video recording?
Or MMS picture messaging? 8-16GB of on-board storage yet you can't save
an e-mail attachment? I realize it was Apple's first celphone, but some of
the design decisions looked as if it was the first cellphone the designers
had ever seen!
So the vitriol isn't about the phone itself, at least in my case, but the
rabid fandom. It would be as if Apple released their first automobile last
year and a bunch of Apple iCar owners continually (cross)posted "thanks to
Apple, I no longer have to walk to work!" or "the iCar has headlights, so
you can drive at night! I guess Ford's finished now!" All of us long-time
car owners who have been driving for years would read this endless crap and
wonder "do these morons really think ANY of this is NEW?"
So, for iPodding, web browsing and e-mail, the iPhone's your boy. In your
case, Japanese language support makes it a clear winner as far as I see it.
For laptop replacement, document editing, and corporate e-mail, other
devices do it better and/or cheaper, at least for me.
> Now, some important disclaimers: I don't use Apple products,
> so I can't be called a booster.
Neither can I- I own exactly one Apple product- a first-gen iPod Nano I
bought second-hand (and still don't see what the fuss about the UI is al
about! It's as akward to use as any MP3 player I've ever owned, pre- or
post-iPod.)
I suppose MY important disclaimer is that I was recently honored (just last
week, in fact) by Microsoft as a Mobile Devices MVP ("Most Valuable
Professional") for my second consecutive year, for my community support on
the various Windows Mobile Usenet groups.
Now before Oxford, 4phun, or iPhone News jumps in screaming "Aha! We knew
it! He's a Microsoft company shill!" I'd like to present into evidence,
your honor, a quote from:
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/def...;EN-US;mvpfaqs
"MVPs are not Microsoft employees, nor do they speak on Microsoft's behalf.
MVPs are third-party individuals who have received an award from Microsoft
that recognizes their exceptional achievements in technical communities..."
So, nope, not a shill, just a guy who likes to help out...
> Also, I read a review of the iPhone 3G
> wherein the reviewer had a call drop three times on the West Side
> Highway near my home (Manhattan), which is frankly nuts. That one
> claim in the review is enough to totally kill any thoughts of getting
> an iPhone for me if it's corroborated. This is Manhattan, for heaven's
> sake, there's signal every-damn-where.
Signal everywhere, but over a million users sharing the limited number of
towers! AT&T in Manhattan seems to have some bandwidth congestion problems
at times- not signal problems. While in motion, if your call hands off
from a tower with capacity to a tower that doesn't, wham! Dropped call.
It happened to me once or twice (on T-Mobile) in Midtown a few weeks ago
> I'm also aware that in some business environments the features
> of the iPhone might make it inappropriate, so that's understood.
>
> I'm just trying to see whether this isn't the most classic
> example of sour grapes in modern times, or if the iPhone cannot
> actually MAKE AND RECEIVE CALLS, as well as do some other stuff that
> you either care about or don't.
It can make or receive calls just fine- at least as well as any touchsceen
phone without a keypad can. (That's not a iPhone slam- no touchscreen phone
is as easy to dial as a phone with a dialpad!) But any phone can make calls,
and no other phone AT&T sells _requires_ you to buy a $30/month dataplan
and sign a two-year contract as a condition of purchase.
> Thanks for listening, DGI
Nice chatting with you! Give the iPhone a serious look- there's a lot to
like about it...
![Why "iToy"? [long]](http://www.wirelessforums.org/iconimages/alt-cellular-sprintpcs/why-itoy-long_ltr.gif)
Why "iToy"? [long] 
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