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Apple iPhone - To Be, or Not to Be?
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Aug 04, 2006 10:58 AM
from the that-is-the-question dept.
from the that-is-the-question dept.
An anonymous reader writes "With the Apple WWDC looming on Monday, the internet once again beats itself silly over what Steve Jobs has in store. At the most fanciful end of the scale, there's talk of the Apple iPhone, to which CNET says, 'keep on dreaming', and Gizmodo says, 'no visible evidence'. The only solid evidence of an iPhone, beyond the endless mocked-up images, is the discovery of hidden phone-related code in a recent iPod updater. Macrumors has some info on what the keynote may contain -- and there's no mention of an iPhone. So, as the rumor mill continues to grind over the weekend, let the predictions begin. Is there an Apple iPhone, or is there not?"
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Coffin Black writes "Apple only has to look askance at a piece of hardware and people are falling over themselves to slap an 'i' all over it and slavering about how cool the theoretical gadgetry is gonna be. So the iPhone may not even exist — beyond a 'just once more thing' gleam in Jobs' eye — but already the column inches are stacking up. Think the iPod is dying? Never fear, says this columnist, it's merely evolving from one form into another (clue: from portable to mobile). This writer, meanwhile, is sticking the boot in early — she says she won't be buying an iPhone, when it of course finally makes it onto the shelves... Though she does add: "If Microsoft created a Phune (a phone and a Zune in one, geddit?), I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole either but that's a different story."" We also covered this story a couple months back.
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Rumors (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Rumors (Score:5, Insightful)
<sarcasm>Hey, yeah. And remember that time when they opened up a chain of retail outlets despite the fact that many other such outlets were tanking and analysts were sure they were smoking something? Boy, did they screw the pooch in that deal!</sarcasm>
The thing you must never lose sight of is that Apple finds its own way of succeeding sometimes by doing things the way no other "sane" (read: "hidebound") person would do.
Will the iPhone become a reality? I'd say no, for completely different reasons than "everybody's doing it already."
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Re:Rumors (Score:4, Interesting)
s/Apple/Steve Jobs/ and you're right on the money. The original Mac was going to be a failure because nobody wanted locked-up proprietary boxes with no CLI or expansion capabilities (and besides that, the Lisa was an abysmal failure), Mac OS X was going to be a failure because who would want to run NeXT Step on a Mac? The iTunes was expected to be failure because 'everyone' downloads illegal music, why would they pay even 99 cents/song?
Everywhere along the way, Jobs saw ways of adding twists to make it work.
What I envision: an iPhone that not only has a built-in PDA based on either Palm OS or some slimmed-down Mac OS X, and not only has an iPod built into it, but one with a video iPod integrated as well. Oh, and you can add this optional GPS package for $X. Throw in built-in wifi and bluetooth connectivity, and you've got one hot device that people won't be able to keep their hands off of.
If Apple introduces it Monday, remember, you heard it here first!
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Re:Rumors (Score:5, Insightful)
Gah! No! Stop throwing things in!
The primary problem with cellphones these days is that they're all maniacally throwing in additional crap like cameras and music players. The last thing the world needs is one more "feature"-laden monstrosity that's five times the size it should be.
If Apple were to enter this market, I think they would have the sense to see that what's really lacking is a simple, elegant telephone. That does its job with grace and speed, and doesn't try to be everything else in the world.
This is certainly one of the great strengths of the ipod, that most of the "ipod killers" don't get. They all try to conquer the ipod by telling people, "But you can listen to the radio, and record audio, and use it as a pda, and a cellphone, and a wireless access point, and a floor wax!" And while Apple has caved a little bit on photos and video, they for the most part have kept sight of the fact that people don't want to do those things. More features is not automatically better.
Sadly, I don't see any reason to believe that Apple actually is entering this market. Not so much for technical reasons as for the bureaucratic morass of dealing with cellular service providers, competing international standards, regulatory bodies, manufacturer subsidies, and the whole rest of the convoluted mess that is the cellphone industry. Apple is currently doing a pretty good job navigating a similar mess in the music industry, and starting to tackle the ones in the television and movie industries. I don't think they'd want to overextend themselves by taking on the telco industry at the same time.
A shame, though. I'd switch in a heartbeat to whatever provider offered an Apple phone.
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Cell phones need Apple's touch (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Rumors (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Rumors (Score:4, Interesting)
Saturated market? Please. There's lots of cell phones out there, sure. And they all pretty much suck ass. Choose one, several, or all of: Poor build quality. Poor integration with the other information sources/sinks in your life. Poor user interface. Poor performance (battery life, RF reception, sound reproduction). Apple can't do much about RF reception and has limited freedom with respect to battery life, but every other thing is either a software issue or an industrial design issue. Guess what two things Apple kicks ass at?
Cell phones are a saturated market much like digital audio players were a saturated market.
All they'd have to do is roll out a GSM-based phone and they'd have access to most of the world's market. Combine that with something like iCal and Addressbook for windows much like they've already ported iTunes to support iPod use on non-Apple platforms and they'd be printing money.
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I really doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
Combining and iPod, Newton and cell phone is an interesting idea, but we have seen that there is some consumer resistance to combining gadgets. Unless Apple can really come up with a new and exciting way to 'do' the cell phone, I don't expect Jobs will entertain the notion.
I know that there have been patents for mobile devices filed by Apple, but I expect many of those are part of their Mutually Assured Destruction stockpile of patents.
My 2 cents, for what its worth.
Newton vs Cellphone (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt that an iPhone would compete with an iPod. I too want to see bits of the Newton restored to a (modern) product we can actually buy and use. I am so unpleased with modern handhelds and cellphones, that 'I want to believe' that A
Re:I really doubt it (Score:5, Interesting)
And that is exactly why a lot of folks are predicting the phone as the next area of Apple's influence.
Look at the Moto phones with iTunes -- they suck and were purposely kept down because Apple was afraid of folks competing with them. Even then, I heard the iTunes was running on some java stack and not integrated directly into the electronics (well...integrated more so).
I know with a simply free phone I picked up from Cingular last year, I've now replaced my Palm...not that I've had much use for it anyways. The phones do almost everything except for stylus entry that my old device did -- and the only place you see items like this are in phones (i.e., the Treo phones...which I really considered until I realized they were HUGE and I like my pocket space...I'll take entering everything from my computer except for the few times I need to enter a quick phone number or appointment with a cryptic title until I can edit and resync).
And now music is getting in these things. Do I want to carry both an iPod AND a phone? The whole thing with the Palm was that I WAS carrying both. My iPod is now relegated to my car or occasionally an airplane these days because I really hate having the batman belt. Even the shitty phones have music on them and even though a good deal are locked and require a purchase from the cellular companys site -- people seem to be willing to pay the $2 - $4 for a song that is a quarter the quality of the similar iTunes download (and as I've found out, generally expire after a few months -- I just wanted to test out the interface because I had been helping a friend convert his tunes to ringtones -- he has a sizable audience and wanted to get 'optimized' files out with 'customized' content before his label did so he had a negotiating block as RTs weren't even considered when he signed on 10 years ago -- they count them as 'club sales' like Columbia House where the artist makes practically nothing).
Back to the point, Apple introduces a phone that replaces my current one AND my iPod -- I'm picking it up. There are only so many gadgets I'm carrying and if I have to make a choice, its my phone...and the more I talk to others, they feel the same way. Luckily Apple seems to be the kind of company that knows how to focus on the essentials which for me would be, Phone, Music, Phone Book, Calendar and a Java Interface to load up Salling Clicker so that I can use my remote to connect to my Mac across the room -- and leave the Java unrestricted so that we can add what we need WHEN we need it and nothing more. Most phones have this stuff, but navigating the interface to use them sucks...
We will see convergence, so does Apple want to be ahead of the curve like the iPod(but not way too ahead like the Newton -- which pretty much introduced us to what we have today) or does it want to be behind the curve like it has on too many other items...
Ok -- in the time I've been called away from my desk a few times now, this is probably redundant and should be modded accordingly
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Apple iPhone Nano (Score:3, Funny)
Is there an Apple iPhone, or is there not? (Score:3, Funny)
Well, maybe if they make it the same shade of off-white as my David Hockney sculpture and make the little Apple logo a bit more silver, I might think about it...
Music Conversation (at least on a cellphone) (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Music Conversation (at least on a cellphone) (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think it'll work. I do think tho, that the references to a phone in the iPod updates may refer to a bluetooth connectivity with the iPod. Didn't see what the references were, tho, so I could be off base.
I think this is just pure speculation. Fun speculation, to be sure, but speculation nevertheless.
Bring on the Reality Distortion Field! Its affect on me must be fading...
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Re:Music Conversation (at least on a cellphone) (Score:4, Informative)
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Is it a good unit? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nevermind syncing features, like Bluetooth or ir. I would expect Apple to want to give that to their users.
So far, I have found few phones as functional as my (old) Nokia 3650, and it's broken. Is an iPhone a phone for me?
Re:Is it a good unit? (Score:3, Informative)
Application development is not a symptom of the phone, but rather the network.
Verizon/Cingular wants to charge you $5 for Tetris, and if they allow just anyone to develop an application which can then be d
iPhone (Score:3, Informative)
Well, the current iPod is not a video iPod according to Stephen, so maybe the next one will not be a phone?
Makes sense.
If I worked at Apple ... (Score:5, Funny)
Former Microsoft evangelist Robert Scoble says (Score:4, Interesting)
This absolutely WILL NOT HAPPEN (Score:5, Interesting)
The time for Apple to release a cellphone was five years ago. Not because it would have been a roaring success - its success would probably have been identical then to a release today, moderate sales, sitting as an overpriced niche product next to the phone enabled Treos and the Nokia 9000 series. Maybe higher - the RAZR proved people still value aesthetics and will pay a premium for it. But what was then is not now. Today Apple has the iPod. The iPod is of critical importance to Apple's medium term future.
And the iPod is facing a competitor, the MP3 playing mobile phone. They're not that good right now, but capacities are going through the roof, so they will be soon. Indeed, get something like a Motorola V635 (which has a transflash port) and you can get a gigabyte card for it today and store a significant amount of music with you, listening to it on bluetooth headphones. iPods in this environment become a way of playing iTMS tracks, and pretty much nothing else. As long as the interfaces in these phones are "good enough", and they have enough capacity, there's no compelling reason for someone to buy a separate MP3 player.
Now, here's the problem. If Apple enters that market with a phone, they're fucked, because whether it's 2001 or 2006, their phone will be the niche - or at most "significant player amongst ten others" - product I mentioned. RAZRs are doing well, but they're not 3/4 of the market. So Apple's percentage of the MP3 player market will plummet. This has direct consequences for the long term viability of their multimedia business.
Apple's one chance at continuing to control the market the way it does today is to license the technology. If they act as a neutral party (rather than a competitor), they can continue to profit from the lion's share of the MP3 players out there, and can continue to grow and control their multimedia business.
If they sell a phone, they become a competitor. They will have problems licensing the technology, and they will become an also-ran.
Everything you're seeing that "points" towards Apple involvement in cellphones points equally at licensing schemes, and often points away from standalone phones. Nobody's (Apple or anyone else) going to make the iPod nano firmware the basis of a mobile phone operating system, but they may be willing to incorporate an iPod nano's core into a mobile phone.
Apple's one try out in this area was the ROKR. The ROKR was a stop-gap, and by all accounts Apple, not Motorola, deliberately crippled it (the 100 song limit, for example.) This should not be judged as "what Apple will do if they take licensing seriously", instead it should be seen as Apple trying to delay mass consumer acceptance of MP3 playing cellphones until the technology is good enough the things just can't be resisted any more.
No Apple cellphone will come from Apple. You'll see cellphones "with iPod(tm) technology" from a variety of manufacturers, but Apple is not in a position to make cellphones and almost certainly doesn't want to enter that particular snake pit of a market. If Apple releases a cellphone over the next few months, an Apple designed and branded unit not mostly owned by Nokia, Motorola, or some other manufacturer, I'd advise selling whatever AAPL stock you have, because it'll be their XBox: a product they'll be subsidizing for years trying to get into a market they have little experience of.
What's the big deal? (Score:4, Funny)
Dial:
6,5,4,5,6,6,6
5,5,5...6,6,6
6,5,4,5,6,6,6,6,5,5,6,5,4
(By the way, I am not responsible for any long distance or airtime charges you may incur)
IT Focus at WWDC (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, it may be that Apple always does this sort of thing to convince people like me to buy Macs. And we surely know that the Mac Pro will debut (as well as 10.5). But the full court press that I am getting suggests that this year's WWDC is as much about people like me as it is developers. Does this indicate anything about the content of Jobs' keynote? Probably not. But the treatment that I am receiving when I have almost nothing to do with development suggests that they are trying to garner as much interest as possible, and as much buy-in as possible.
Re:The only.... (Score:5, Funny)
Damn kids.
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Re:The only.... (Score:5, Funny)
I prefer the type of phone that you crank in order to get the operators attention, and then say "Maybel, connect me to my mother."
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