Nurhisham Hussein

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dommasters

SteveHoward999

Ahhhh the iPhone ... that thing that does what everything else has done for years. but with more pizzaz and a much more massive media campaign ...

:-)

Deslock

Have you actually used one? I did last night and the first phrase to come to mind is:

Holy. Crap.

It's very lightweight, small, thin, and ergonomic (the curves make it even more comfortable and pocketable than the dimensions indicate). The interface effectively uses the available pixels (lower than VGA, but noticeably higher and sharper than the QVGA or the 240x240 found on most WM-based smart phones).

The capacitance touch-screen works better than any other I've used (I've owned 14 touch-screen PDAs over the years). Multi-touch is as slick and useful as the ads make it look. So is multimedia playback. Safari lacks flash and full java support, but it still blows away all the other PDA browsers I've tried (ajax support is there and google docs works, BTW).

The applications are intuitive and the OS is responsive. As in, there is no lag. At all. For anything. That last one is the real kicker... frankly I'm sick of waiting for things to happen on my WM5 iPAQ.

I'm no Apple fanboi and I'm not trying to bash WM. Like every device, the iPhone has deficiencies: While the EDGE network can be reasonably quick, it's often excruciatingly slow. There is no voice recorder, video recorder, GPS, installable apps, expandable memory, or swappable battery (though its life is excellent). Push email options are limited. There are still questions about how it'll work with Exchange.

So clearly the iPhone isn't a suitable tool for a lot of users. But does a hell of a lot of things better than any other PDA/smartphone I've used and its feature-set is actually fine for most people. Hate Apple and Steve Jobs all you want, but give them credit for this one... the iPhone lives up to its hype.

Of course, it's only one device and given the price I don't see it selling anywhere near 20 million by 2008 like WM will.

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SteveHoward999

Deslock

Indeed. In the context of your response to dommasters, your point appeared to be to dismiss the iPhone as something that does what previous devices have been doing for years, but with better marketing. The iPhone is certainly more than that (this is the first product with a capacitance-based, multi-touch interface and arguably the first smartphone with both an effective interface and decent multimedia options).

As I wrote before, the iPhone is missing a lot of features, but it handles most key consumer needs. And the point is that what it does, it does very well. Most users will give up their (crappy) cell-phone video in exchange for an interface and web browser that aren't frustrating.

Had Microsoft announced the iPhone with an equally jaw-dropping interface, it would also get a lot of hype. Possibly not quite as much as Apple's iPhone because Apple is "hip" (though Xbox 360 has been a boon for Microsoft here), but it would still be huge.

Case in point, Microsoft's Surface got a lot of mainstream press and attention because it's a very slick product. Despite it not being announced as a consumer level product (and despite it being similar to a demo shown last year), there was a lot of hype. If the average user could get a Surface computer, it'd be the next big thing, even without having the benefit of Steve Jobs' reality distortion field :mrgreen:

As far as WM goes, Microsoft doesn't make the hardware themselves and they don't advertise the same way Apple does. And let's be honest... WM isn't a stellar product. It's feature-rich, but plagued by a mediocre interface and many frustrating problems that Microsoft has not addressed.

On the plus side, if the iPhone does well, maybe it'll prompt Microsoft to fix WM's issues. Anyway, this has gotten off topic.

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Zex_Suik

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SteveHoward999

I was in a hurry. I had better things to do with my time on a Saturday than spend 15 minutes crafting an extended reply.

Now I've finished with the busy part of the day and have a beer in my hand:-

"that thing that does what everything else has done for years."

There are no features in the iPod that have not been seen elsewhere in some mobile device or other ...

"but with more pizzaz"

OK the inteface is cool. I think we all get that. But it's not the brand new revolutionary thing the wet dreamers make it out to be. It's a bit like saying what was first, Windows or Mac visual interface? ...

Er, actually, try Xerox ;-)

"and a much more massive media campaign ... "

The media campaign is a massive thing for a few reasons, but only one is the money Apple spent. The trend-driven media drool over anything Apple. Apple might have spent 10 million (or twenty or fifty or who knows what) but the media frenzy has been worth many many more times whatever Apple spent.

Those who have not seen or used a smart phone or PDA (and there's many more than anyone here wants to believe) have probably been introduced to the dea of a 'smart' phone by the iPhone - well, after creaming over their Razrs for the last 3 years. Everyone here knows that (leaving aside the interface and the multitouch screen) PocketPC, Symbian and even Palm have been doing most of what the iPhone is showing off for years. But when did you ever see Microsoft or Palm or Nokia or whoever blitzing the media, or winning over tv anchormen with their shiny trendy toys in such scale?

I'm not saying the iPhone is bad. I'm just saying there has never been the same effort to get across the cool features of any other preceding device. And the physical designs of most have been (ralatively) bland and businesslike in comparisson. But that's because someone told the PDA/smartphone marketing focus group that these are toys only businessmen and geeks want.

Apple knows different.

So do we!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But the wet dreamers are only going to say that I hate the iPhone and should stop being so horrid to it. But that's coz they don't want to take the time to understand that I am ambivalent towards the iPhone, and just would like to have seen better "spreading the word" efforts, and better designs for PocketPC over the last 5 years.

Yata

SteveHoward999

They survived on about that in the personal computer market for years, so why not?