No Third-party Apps on iPhone Says Jobs 778
wyldeone writes "In an interview with the New York Times, Steve Jobs confirms reports that the recently-announced iPhone will not allow third party applications to be installed. According to Jobs, 'These are devices that need to work, and you can't do that if you load any software on them.' In a similar vein, Jobs said in a MSNBC article that, 'Cingular doesn't want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.'"
Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
The iPod is pretty neat straight out of Apple, but the true possibilities of the device aren't really reached. Take a look at the Rockbox firmware for iPods -- it adds tons of features that Apple said were "technically impossible" or that "nobody wants". Right now I'm listening to a gapless FLAC album with a bit of crossfeed, and it's wonderful. Fuck you, Jobs. You don't know what I want. Stop telling me what to do!
With respect to phones, I think the iPhone is going to be a flop. When it's all said and done, it's a $3000 phone (can't get one without 2 years of Cingular's worthless service) that plays mp3s and has a calendar with pixmaps borrowed from OS X.
I'm holding out for Trolltech's Greenphone. It runs Linux, and the point is openness... you can recompile the kernel if you want! Paired with KDE 4, I think it's going to blow the iPhone out of the water... at least for people that want a useful, hackable mini-computer and not a $3000 status symbol.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Right... (Score:5, Informative)
2007 looks like an interesting year for smartphones: the iPhone on the one hand, and OpenMoko and Greenphone for open Linux-based platforms on the other.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The iPod is pretty neat straight out of Apple, but the true possibilities of the device aren't really reached. Take a look at the Rockbox firmware for iPods -- it adds tons of features that Apple said were "technically impossible" or that "nobody wants". Right now I'm listening to a gapless FLAC album with a bit of crossfeed, and it's wonderful. Fuck you, Jobs. You don't know what I want. Stop telling me what to do!
With respect to phones, I think the iPhone is going to be a flop.
I would tend to agree with that. I use my phone for all sorts of stuff other than just making calls. For example I use it to keep track of my expenses and if this iPhone doesn't have that functionality I can't add it by going to a 3rd party software vendor like I did with my Nokia phone. I'm pretty sure that later on Apple will back down on this point. Third party software is simply to useful to customers so eventually the iPhone will either be a flop or Apple will allow third party software but require it
Re:Right... (Score:5, Interesting)
So expect an iPhone 2 in about 12 months time with these features if they want to launch in the Europe/Asia (which is a larger market than the US by a long way so they'd be stupid not to).
(The Apple TV is also aimed squarely at the US market also, given that itunes doesn't support video downloads in any other country (and 'a selection of pixar short films' does *not* count) - sensing a pattern here...)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
I realize many here would happily take an ass-ugly black brick if it ran linux, had a full array of ports (USB and serial, oh yeah!). However, unless you've been asleep since the iPod rolled out, you may have noticed that people seem to really dig the simple interface and gorgeous industrial design. People don't want whizzy features. They want a phone that makes a good status symbol, and this will fit the bill nicely.
Nail on the Head. (Score:3, Interesting)
The iPhone is just down right nice, and the interface is fantastic.
However... I don't get why apple fanboys are so anti microsoft. In the past few years, Apple has proven to be just a evil as MS and in some ways worse. The whole "no third party apps" is a prime example, great... another Apple product with some amazing hardware t
Re:Nail on the Head. (Score:4, Informative)
The article below in case the link dies.
Japan far ahead of iPhone
Cellphones there used for everything from buying milk to booking a train
January 12, 2007
Bruce Wallace
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
TOKYO-Tomoaki Kurita presides over racks of cellphones lined up outside his shop on a busy sidewalk in Harajuku, Tokyo's catwalk of youth street culture where people attracted by the riot of phone options can stop to flip open and fondle the latest models of what the Japanese call a "keitai."
From behind his busy counter, Kurita giggles when asked about the excitement in the United States over the arrival of Apple's iPhone cellphone that also could be used to download music and surf the Internet.
"Sounds like business as usual," he says.
As stock markets swooned and techies buzzed over Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs' long-awaited entry into the cellphone market, Japanese consumers could be excused for wondering: Why the fuss?
Many Japanese had a hard time buying Jobs' hype about "reinventing" the phone. The revolution is well underway in Japan, where cellphones are used for everything from navigating your way home by GPS to buying movie tickets and updating your blog from wherever you are.
Oh yeah. Japanese cellphones also download music, surf the Net and make phone calls.
They've been a natural extension of daily life the past few years, spurred by the Japanese decision to be the first country to upgrade to third-generation cellphone networks, or 3G, which increased broadband capabilities and allowed for greater, faster transmission of voice and data. Apple's iPhone, by comparison, will operate on a 2G network.
It was 3G that sparked the boom in music downloads that makes it common for phones to be used as portable digital music players here.
And it is 3G that has led the Japanese into a world where they can watch live TV on their phones, use the phone as a charge card to ride trains or buy milk at the corner store or take a taxi, and conduct conference calls between as many as five people. Ticket Pia, Japan's major entertainment ticketing agency, has been selling email tickets to cellphones since 2003.
Most observers contend the U.S. has begun to close the gap on cellphone use in Japan, South Korea and Europe. Music downloads by cellphone are rising in the U.S. - and the long-term threat to iPod's lead in downloads was a major force behind Apple's entry into cellphones. Other functions are following.
"We plan to introduce one-way video conferencing in the U.S. this year," says Melissa Elkins of LG Electronics MobileCOMM, referring to a function that would allow one person to be visible to the other during a phone call. Two-way telephony has been available in South Korea for about 18 months, Elkins says.
But the biggest difference between the U.S. and countries like Japan is the culture the keitai has created. To wait for a light on a Tokyo street corner or ride a train these days is to see crowds of people with their heads down, thumbs pumping as they send photos, text message or play online games on their phone. Increasingly, they are reading books and manga comics on their phones, too.
The keitai has become an extension of personality.
There is software to create a personalized home page on the cellphone. Young men and women customize their phones, hang posses of tiny dolls off them, cover them with stickers and paints.
"I like it because it's cute," says Mami Nawa, 23, as she shows off the dial pad she has painted in purple and pink to
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I am not saying that the iPhone will be the blackberry
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
All they want is something that looks good enough to share around by MMS messages, archive as backgrounds on the phone, or something that could be printed out as a sticker.
Otherwise, why do people even bother buying the 7.1 megapixel junk-compact cameras these days being pumped out by Canon, Panasonic, Sony, etc? SAME THING.
Anything 7.1 and up and using a tiny CCD
Re:Right... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Right... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I have a Trolltech Greenphone on my desk because we develop software for it. And while it is hackable, Linux based, and a nice geek gizmo, there is no way I'm going to use it as my primary mobile phone. Teeeeny stuff to hit with the stylus. Lots of buttons that you don't really know what they do. Difficult to enter text. (It's a development platform after all.)
Personally, I'm using the cheapest Motorola cellphone available (monochrome display, does nothing more than phone and SMS), and I'm holding out for the iPhone to hit Europe. Because I don't WANT to hack a device to use it as a phone/PIM, even if I COULD.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Right... (Score:4, Insightful)
What might kill the phone is its price and lack of features. No GPS, no G3, poor battery life, and a camera with yesterday's specs; so much for being 5 years ahead, Steve. It looks cool, but I'm not paying around $500 for a pretty case and a slick user interface, when my current WM5 phone (with GPS) costs $150 on a cheap 2 year plan.
Re:Right... (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet you still bought an iPod. I think that's the kind of "Fuck you" Jobs can live with.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, OS X isn't exactly a speed demon either. Which is why I think Jobs is lying about the iPhone using it -- for a device that can't run 3rd party software, using OS X is a real waste of CPU and money.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Right... (Score:5, Informative)
$20 plan not available... (Score:3, Informative)
Also there is a requirement for these plans to be paired with at least a $40/month voice plan (and not forgetting the $5/month fees that sound like taxes but aren't) that's $85/month - for 2 years that's a minimum
Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
So that's it? The iPhone saved space by not having a plastic keyboard? Please tell me after two days after the keynote that's not the only advantage it actually has.
Re:Right... (Score:5, Funny)
Well, because the iPhone will not be available for another 6 months I guess it really is 4 1/2 years ahead of anything out there.
Re:Right... (Score:5, Informative)
You see, real smartphones let you install whatever software you want onto your phone. Hell, even many (most?) non-smart phones can run Java apps. That's certainly the kind of functionality Cingular customers are used to.
What Apple's doing with the iPhone, OTOH, is what Verizon customers are used to: the carrier tells you what you can do with your phone. You buy it, but you don't really own it. They say it's about quality assurance, and to some degree it might even be, but what it's really about is making sure you pay for extra features, instead of downloading freeware or writing your own. They think that if you're getting extra value out of their service, you owe them for it. But even Verizon doesn't go that far with their smartphones!
There might be apps written by third parties on the iPhone, but who writes them is pretty much irrelevant, because you can't write or install them without going through Cingular and/or Apple. They'll charge for the SDK, for testing apps, and for making apps available to users, and those costs will be passed onto the end user in the form of (1) paying to download apps and (2) limited selection because amateurs can't afford to develop.
Re:Right... (Score:4, Informative)
Jobs is looking for the top buyers who will pay nearly anything for a phone that just plain works and has simple email/text messaging and maybe a web browser. In this market, the iPod is really just a bonus.
My only question is, is this a GSM phone that will let me change out the chip so I can use it around the world? Unfortunately, I don't think so. Anyway, my dad will surely buy it in the next year. He's slowly converting to the entire Apple line (First an ipod, then 2 imacs, now this).
Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Jobs is not an idiot, and it is just barely possible that Apple has done a little market research on this subject, so your statement is probably correct. This is not a phone for the average
If Apple follows the iPod legacy, they'll produce a device with stupidly high usability and a narrowly defined feature set that serves the objectively-identified desires of their target customers: wealthy, style-and-trend-conscious technophiles who don't actually know anything about technology. Pre-iPod, MP3 players were like those 19th century automobiles that you steered with a tiller rather than a steering wheel. The iPod didn't add any new functionality, but it made existing functionality vastly easier to use. If the iPhone does the same thing it'll be a major hit. Open or closed really doesn't matter, because that's not something that the target purchaser cares about.
Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you don't realize it, but you can go out today and buy a cellular device from any US carrier that does run third-party apps, without having to get them signed or tested by the carrier or manufacturer. The world hasn't ended, the networks haven't been crashed by rogue apps, and customer service desks aren't overwhelmed with calls from idiots who broke their own phones by installing something.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, Apple is a *solutions* company. They provide the hardware/software to solve a problem or issue. The mobile music issue is solved by a combination of the iPod, iTunes, and iTunes Store. The issue of professional video production is solved by thecombination of the pro tower with firewire, cinema display, OS X, Final Cut Pro, etc etc etc.
In this case, the issue/problem is twofold: 1) why are cellphones a source of frustr
Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, FFS. This is Slashdot, and you're glad that the most revolutionary electronic device in years is moronically shackled, and you get modded up? What is this, is your brain terminally fried by the reality distortion field?
Do you by any chance also believe Vista's DRM stack is good for everyone because it allows us to watch movies in an orderly manner?
Re:Right... (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because he won't officially allow it doesn't mean it won't be done, it just means it won't be commercial (No iJamster).
Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
So I'd attribute this more to carrier paranoia than to Jobs' control issues.
In any case, for me this is a deal-breaker. I was in love with this device yesterday. With no third party apps, I'm entirely uninterested until somebody hacks it.
Correction (Score:5, Interesting)
The US- wireless carriers are all scared shitless of a device like this.
Sorry, you just don't have this kind of shit dictated by European phone networks. Phones sold here (with and without plans) have no such restrictions.
They also don't have any restrictions in uploading your sounds, images, movies or (in case of smartphones) applications.
They also don't come with criplled Bluetooth stacks or some of the other stunts of which US carriers seem so fond of pulling off.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Correction (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Price. Most US carriers offer plans that let you call anywhere
Re:Correction (Score:5, Insightful)
The carriers that you're thinking of that restrict all that stuff are Verizon and Sprint (at least the Sprint phone I had), but the GSM providers here like T-Mobile and Cingular seem to be much more open about what you can do with your phones, which is why this iPhone restriction is so strikingly odd IMHO. It just seems natural that you could use third party apps on your horribly expensive iPhone, but they've really reduced the reasons I'd even be interested in it because I saw no instant messaging application for instance.
What if I want to use Jabber to my private Jabber server? What if I want to view and edit Microsoft Office documents? I saw no way to even view Word docs or Excel spreadsheets on this unlike the Blackberry. This is an overpriced toy, nothing more. Paris Hilton will have one and so will the other materialistic bubbleheads, but until it supports third party apps it couldn't lick a Blackberry or Treo's taint, much less be years ahead of it in functionality.
Re:Right... (Score:5, Informative)
Nope, this is about Jobs' control issues.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
1) you need push email based on the internal servers running at the business (not yahoo for every business I've ever seen)
2) need a fast network to browse the net most business's are interested in
fails on both points right now. probably will continue failing on the first point for a long time to come.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd say it has more to do with the trademark suit. Apple can't claim their two devices don't converge if people are able to use the Apple iPhone to do VoIP, which is the only function the Cisco product can do. Right now the iPhone has a laundry list of features and abilities, but VoIP calling is not one of them. So, technically, the Apple iPhone and the Cisco iPhone are not in the same markets.
If development of the iPhone was opened up, I'd wager the very first third party app would be Skype. With a device that connects to WiFi networks so easily and VoIP, who needs a big bucket of Cingular minutes?
We still have six months before the device ships, the policy could change depending on how things go in the trademark dispute and the wireless carrier world as well. T-Mobile starts building their 3G network this year, and that will have an impact.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If you're getting these problems with a VOIP service, change service. The *only* issue I've ever had with VOIP is bad delay (c. 1 second) and random stuttering when there are packet delays. Echo is caused by using cheap phones / softphones that don't have adequate echo cancellation, and is therefore entirely avoidable. Running it over GPRS shouldn't be an issue; a GPRS link has more than enough bandwidth to cope with VOIP.
That
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I feel your pain, developers. I'm just a user but dangling a beauty of a cherry like that with a big padlock on it, I wouldn't expect any less venom on /.
Fact is that maybe 1 in 5,000-ish people are even capable of writing applications worthy of public consumption. That would be about 60,000 people just in the U.S., many many more worldwide and excludes skript kiddies. That's not much of a market to lose for the sake of security [whatever!]. I've seen some people live through horrible train wrecks with the
Re:Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
As you say though, closing off those choices turns it yet another expensive phone, albeit w/ a slick UI. Frankly, I want a tiny useable computer which doubles as a phone -- not a phone which mimics some aspects of a computer. I wish Apple understood that.
As the first post said, Apple shot themselves in the face with that limitation. No way in hell I'd pay $600 for a device crippled to prevent 3d party apps. Note, I write this with the recognition that I'm also pretty much an apple fanboy (I have 4 apple laptops of various makes and models, plus two pre-g3 machines that still work -- though their only use is for show-n-tell time when company come over).
Re:Right... (Score:5, Funny)
That must be one crazy party.
Hah, things never change! (Score:5, Insightful)
And AT&T didn't want to see their network go down because someone connected an evil non-AT&T phone to it.
The proper translation of this statement of course is "We don't want anybody do be able to do anything on our network unless we're making money from it apart from the fee we charge for the bandwidth."
Stupid telecom companies will never learn. They don't want to create a free market of any kind. Anytime they make any protest involving having a free market, they're being rank hypocrites.
Actually, no. (Score:4, Insightful)
Openmoko.com.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is Apple not wanting anyone to play with their ball but trying to shift the blame for a lousy decision.
Wow, the apple has fallen far from the tree (Score:5, Insightful)
I won't buy your phone if I can't write code for it, Steve. I'm sure you're heartbroken. Me and Woz will just be over here in the corner, crying in our beards.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But it is a race. And it is going to be won by SOMEONE. There is zero chance that phone is not going to get modded. The question is how long it takes for someone to do it properly....
Re:Wow, the apple has fallen far from the tree (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not going to spend $450 on a phone that doesn't come with an API, regardless of whether it can be hacked. I'd much rather be running ARM binaries on a Unix-like OS than dealing with stuff like MIDP 1.0 (which doesn't even offer float math), but I'll reward the company that provides me with the interface I need. If I have to void the warranty to run the software I feel like running, I don't have any intention of paying for the experience.
I'm sure this thing will be useful to someone, somewhere, with only the bundled functionality, but for me, Steve's just announced a really expensive brick.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Basicly the phone software is digitally signed with a private key only Apple has. Also, any software updates are signed too and verified before they are loaded and run. Unless you can physically desolder or decap the chips and get direct access to the piece of memory containing the public key for the phone in order to replace it with a new one (or disable the checks), it cant be hacked.
I believe Motorola have some kind of system like this on all their non li
3rd party applications... (Score:4, Insightful)
What they probably mean... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's face it, the fact that cell phones so far did less is _not_ because Nokia and others are stupid. Psion alone has quite a lot of experience in making stuff that goes from phones to good PDAs (including some decent office tools, for a PDA) to a sort of a micro-laptop. They figured out by now what the users want, and believe me, the thought of using a touch-screen _did_ occur to them before too. (The Psion 5 did a great job of using both touch screen and keyboard, for example.) Anyone who thinks it took Jobs to show everyone how to scroll a map on a touch screen, needs a bit of a reality check.
The reason why cell phones were limited devices has to do with cost, power consumption and "how much do we think the market would pay for it" issues. Most of the market wants to get their phone almost for free, and in fact often get some other stuff with it too. Then the contract recoups most of that, but then it means the phone itself can't cost thousands, because even with the contract and fleecing them for ringtones and SMS, there's only so much money you'll have to pay for phones _and_ the telco infrastructure _and_ other operating costs _and_ hopefully make a small profit, or at least not make a big loss.
So the more money you want a telco to pay to subsidize your phone, the more hope you must give them that they'll actually get that money back one way or another. E.g., you pack an IRC client on it to give them some hope that some idiot kid will rake up a huge phone bill while spending hours on IRC with a crap number pad as a keyboard. Or you give them an exclusivity contract, in which they practically pay you advertising money for a reason for people to switch to their network. That's worth more money, but even that has a limited upper limit. Or you try to lock it down and give them a "see, but they'll have to buy this and that only from you" hope. Which is obviously what Apple is doing here.
So at the end of the day, that's about how much a traditional phone can cost. That's why you can only pack so much CPU, RAM and everything in it.
Why the iPhone does more is probably because it costs an arm and a leg to produce. Being launched with an exclusive contract and still be left with a huge price tag anyway already hinted at that, but it's details like these that hint at exactly how huge the price must be. Cingular probably ends up paying a heck of a lot to subsidize Apple's gizmo, and they needed a heck of a reason to do that. Enter the "what if we completely locked it down, so people have to buy _everything_ from you?" factor.
An application bringing down the network? (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds to me like he was just fishing for excuses about why hes not allowing third party apps. It isnt necessarily a bad thing that they arent allowed but that excuse is bogus.
He didn't say "no" to more applications though (Score:4, Interesting)
One easy way is to provide the ability for user-added applications to run with lower privileges (just like they can already under Mac OS X - I can run my own programs as me, but not as "root" or any other user). Though that opens up the avenue for local root escalation vulnerabilities to be exploited.
Of course, for my immediate needs it would be enough to have some way to scan barcodes and interact with web pages. But then, Steve is pushing the line that it's the phone reinvented, not a tablet PC.
Re:He didn't say "no" to more applications though (Score:4, Informative)
For example, you can go right now and download the BREW SDK, which is used for writing apps that will run on Verizon phones. It's totally free.
But you know what? There aren't really all that many apps for Verizon phones--certainly not as many as for other carriers' phones that run unsigned Java apps--and none of those apps are free. If you want a game or utility, you have to buy it for $5-$10 or pay a monthly subscription. And if someone hasn't written the thing you have in mind, forget about writing it yourself, unless you think you can sell it to a big audience.
See, you can get the SDK and write apps for free, but if you want to run it on actual hardware, you have to get a new phone and send it away to be authorized for debugging. Ka-ching! If you want others to be able to run your app, you have to pay to get it tested and signed, then strike up a deal with Verizon to get them to put it in their store. You can't really release it for free, of course, because you've just invested hundreds of dollars in it.
End result: only mass-appeal apps get written at all, and there's no open source or even freeware.
Oh, and one more thing: it's not really about quality assurance. People are smart enough to realize that if they install a crappy app, it's their own fault, and they can uninstall it. This is really about the carrier (Verizon/Cingular) and manufacturer (Qualcomm/Apple) seeing a chance to make a buck by crippling their hardware.
Re:He didn't say "no" to more applications though (Score:5, Interesting)
FTFA: "These are devices that need to work, and you can't do that if you load any software on them," he said. "That doesn't mean there's not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn't mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment."
I'm guessing that software is going to be sold through iTMS and be checked out by Apple before being sold. Kinda like how the iPod is right now. Yeah, Electronic Arts makes iPod games, but you better damn believe that Apple makes sure they work and makes sure that they work well.
The whole thing about Apple is that for better or worse now, they are big on vertical integration. They successfully vertically integrated the MP3 player market before anyone else, and they are looking to do the same with smartphones. iTunes, iTMS, and iPod work so well due to the vertical integration and the fact that Apple has control over the whole experience. This not only makes it easier to use than a non-integrated setup, but also increases consumer lock-in. They seem to be trying to do the same with phones, and very well may succeed. If they do, it will be great for them.
And I was going to buy one. (Score:2)
How is it that network integrity is dependent upon the (millions of) client devices. If their network is designed in this way, well, I'll stick with Verizon.
No third party apps? (Score:5, Insightful)
Granted I'm not the prototypical candidate for one of these:
- I'm from South Africa and
- I'm a Geek,
but added to the fact that it doesn't have 3G [wikipedia.org] (which all of it's competitors at this price-point does have) this becomes a no-show for me at least.Deal Breaker (Score:5, Insightful)
Jobs brings up the issue of running apps that will interfere with the phone capabilities, but I'm sure a bright engineer over at Apple (or maybe two if that's what it takes) could figure out how to give priority to the phone process, and make sure it gets attention when it needs to. This is just BS. I guess I'm getting myself a "free" S-E w800i for a couple more years until Jobs comes to his senses. iPhone, we hardly knew ye...
iWhatever, next! (Score:3, Interesting)
Plain and simple, this sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
OK. As the information about the iPhone has started to come in after the announcement, I am decidedly off the bandwagon at this point.
This is stupid. Why do people put up with Apple and these games? If MSFT or Sony pulled this crap, the entire Slashdot universe would reign fury on these companies. But Apple? I'll read 1000 posts about "wait and see" and about how Steve Jobs is protecting us from ourselves.
Apple needs to get over it and open this up. At $600, if you can't even get the geeks excited, this product has 0 chance of succeeding.
Re:Plain and simple, this sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think so. I think the people who don't put up with Sony's crap also don't put up with Apple's crap. It's only the Apple fanboys who do. As for MSFT, the problem with them is that they're a monopoly, so anything they do is subject to much greater scrutiny. If you don't like Sony's stupid policies, buy a different TV or game system. If you don't like Apple's stupid policies, buy a different MP3 player or phone or computer. But if you don't like Vista's new content protection, you may be stuck with it if your work or certain necessary applications requires you to use it.
Apple needs to get over it and open this up. At $600, if you can't even get the geeks excited, this product has 0 chance of succeeding.
Personally, I think this product will succeed brilliantly. Not because of any great features or whatever, but because of the hordes of morons out there that will think it's "so cool" to have a combination cellphone and iPod, and will happily shell out the cash for it regardless of what actual value it offers. After all, look at the MP3 player market. There's still lots of choice for the smaller flash-based players (8GB and under), but for the larger hard drive players (20GB+), the iPod has pretty much killed most of the competition. iRiver had some nice units with far more features than the iPod, but they threw in the towel. But there's still people out there who want players like these: check out what used iRiver H340 players are selling on Ebay for. The only decent alternative I see in the new market now is the Cowon X5.
Are widgets apps? (Score:2)
Otherwise that's another strike against buying it (it does not say if it supports Java apps, which probably means "no"). And I had such high hopes
Arrogant bastard (Score:4, Insightful)
That solves that then (Score:2)
I was a perfect customer for the iPhone when it came to the UK, so I could replace the lot with one slick interface and a lovely form factor. But no extra software on the
Bugger, have to stay with Windows (Score:2, Interesting)
Quick ! (Score:5, Funny)
It seems Jobs think his users and followers are idiots...
OK, but you can't call it a "smart phone" then. (Score:5, Insightful)
The iPhone does appear to be a dazzling reinvention of the dumb phone. It does the same things my RAZR does: pictures, email, sorta browse the web, SMS, etc. I don't use, or just barely use, any of these features on my RAZR because the RAZR sucks at all of them. I junked my Treo 650 and got the RAZR because I wanted something that just made calls. So, in a limited way, it is cool that Apple is apparently going to best crappy phones like my RAZR, and make such features work reasonably. It even adds like 3 more features, such as google maps. So I'm sure they would dominate the dumbphone market with the iPhone, if it weren't for the fact that it has that smart phone price tag.
But, despite what anybody (e.g., Jobs) might say, smart phones are a hell of a lot more like computers than they are like iPods. After reading (ahem!) the article, I think we are kind of getting a glimpse of the hubris of the old Steve Jobs who wanted to see trucks full of sand coming in one side of the factory, where Apple would make its own silicon and assemble 100% Apple computers. Closed, proprietary systems can work for something like the iPod, but the reason is that iPods are only for doing one thing: playing media, mostly music.
A "smart phone", on the other hand, does many things. It is able to not only browse the web, but also, on a case-by-case basis, SSH into remote machines, view PDF content, view Flash content, run flash-card software for studying, run English-to-Japanese-Chinese-Arabic-Whatever dictionary software, count calories, time events, serve as a podium-top teleprompter for making speeches, record bibliographic data while researching in the library, play retro Missile Command and Dig-Diug clones, play MahJong, display recipes and cocktail how-tos, track ovulation, and so on, and so on.
Apple might be cool, but there is no way in hell that any single company can fill the software needs of a diverse user base.
So there are only three real potential outcomes here:
a.) Apple keeps it locked tight and is content to sell a very expensive but very elegant dumb phone.
b.) Lobbying by users, developers, and corporate purchases convince Apple that they need to offer a way to load third-party software... third party developers will certainly fill the void, and quickly if the iPhone's OS is really anything remotely like the developer-friendly Mac OS X.
c.) Some kind of middle ground is reached whereby developers pay Apple for the privilege of compatibility--like what they've managed to do with the iPod dock connector.
As a potential customer, I can say that I was 100% ready to buy some of these initially, until I heard about this very surprising position taken by Apple. Now, I don't know. It's possible I would buy one, but $600 is a lot to spend for what is an admittedly elegant but extremely limited feature set.
Although I do have a dollar here that says hackers will figure it out whatever Apple does...
But the executive summary is that this is a bummer for users and has legitimately dissipated the bulk of the excitement that surrounded the iPhone launch. I think most users naturally assumed it would run a diverse set of applications, so at first it seemed like an ultra-portable mini-Mac. Now, it's more like an ultra-portable mini-Mac that only runs iLife. The former is a lot more exciting than the latter.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Cisco is pressuring Apple on this. (Score:5, Interesting)
Cisco, which owns the iPhone trademark, has announced what they want for it. [cisco.com]
An "open approach". Interoperability.
Fundamentally we wanted an open approach. We hoped our products could interoperate in the future. In our view, the network provides the basis to make this happen--it provides the foundation of innovation that allows converged devices to deliver the services that consumers want. Our goal was to take that to the next level by facilitating collaboration with Apple. And we wanted to make sure to differentiate the brands in a way that could work for both companies and not confuse people, since our products combine both web access and voice telephony. That's it. Openness and clarity. - Cisco's general counsel.
Yaeh, that's our job! (Score:5, Funny)
Classic, this one (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple shouldn't be called Apple anymore... (Score:3, Interesting)
It is such an incredible shame that such an enticing machine is all look, but no touch. It's like being given a piano and told that you can't try and play it, only look at it. It's just wrong in so many ways.
Well, I guess Jobs thinks that I should be happy that he is saving me from myself. Unfortuntely, it seems the rest of world IS happy about it and that just makes me even more depressed.
I never liked that guy... he still owes woz some money for breakout...
Thanks,
Mike
I had no idea... (Score:5, Funny)
Then why mention "Desktop Apps" during the keynote (Score:4, Interesting)
Argh.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
We like Safari on Desktop but Opera Mobile is like 5 years ahead of competition on that business.
I wonder another thing. Why can't a system being "5 years ahead" doesn't come with built in spam protection? I tried Kaspersky Symbian Beta and it adds "sms/mms spam protection" to my Nokia.
Cingular doesn't want it too I guess
I call BS (Score:5, Informative)
The relevant quote...
In other words, the reporter doesn't know squat about the actual circumstances regarding third-party apps and is blowing farts in the wind, making speculative and general statements in the hope that someone will imagine that he's right when something he says turns out to vaguely resemble the truth.
It'll allow signed applications (Score:3, Insightful)
This is an old idea; the part you bolded in your quote says it all. Essentially, the apps need to be digitally signed. It sucks; I used to use a platform that was like that. Things were stagnant in the first year, no interesting software came out. Getting the dev kit and certification is extremely expensive and well out of the reach for any OSS and most shareware.
After a while (almost a year), other operators started to sell the same phone without the limitation. Orange UK, the telco, were forced to allow
OpenMoko (Score:5, Interesting)
If it has a web browser (Score:4, Insightful)
So how powerful is the inbuilt web browser?
If it can run java applets near full-screen then I don't see why you can't implement a whole
heap of stuff that way. Sure, no VoIP or offline games, but I can't see why you couldn't run
SSH clients or custom internet based apps that way.
Sure I'm not interested in a device costing that much that I can't write stuff that runs offline for (and in NZ
it'll cost $unfeasible to use our shitty mobile networks), but there looks like *some* ability there
to run custom apps.
- MugginsM
Not quite the whole story, but most of it. (Score:5, Interesting)
"That doesn't mean there's not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn't mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment."
Steve's obviously playing control freak here, but I can understand his reasoning. Sony does the same thing for the PlayStation platform. An SDK ~is~ available, if you pay the huge fee for it, and Sony still gets to decide if your title is good enough to get their PlayStation branding. If the iPhone is going to work as a product for Apple, it really does have to work just as smoothly as its demo. Just like Sony, Apple gets to vet/check software before it goes out into the wide world.
The hacker geeks aren't going to like it, but, hey, it didn't stop Sony from owning the world with this very same model for the PSX and PS2.
Oh, and you can bet your bottom dollar this isn't the only device in this area that Apple will be bringing out. Expect to see this techology in a more hackable, computer-like form very soon.
I say let the iPhone be an iPhone -- that's what's it's going to be good at.
Happy feeling gone :( (Score:3, Interesting)
The price tag didn't seem that scary at first. My brand new Nokia N70 costs 400E off the shelf.* With a 2-year plan, that came down to 55E, pretty damn affordable for a near-Smartphone. I didn't understand, at first, that the iPhone's price (500$ or 600$) included the 2-year plan! As I fully expect Cingular to charge for services (the very services the iPhone is so cool about) on top of that, the price has suddenly leapt straight out of my potential budget (and I'm a gadget lover with a good pay!).
No 3G? Well, there's no camera on the iPhone, so you won't be suffering bad video-conferencing. And if you're only use text e-mails, that's OK. Too bad for the "our browser isn't crippled and text-only!" hype. At those speeds, you'll want to go back to WAP.
And now no 3rd party apps? Their lame excuses don't even surprise me. I guess they're perfectly understandable for the mid-to-high level risk-averse manager. Whatever. However, I expect they'll catch up by selling apps for the iPhone. This is the final straw that confirms the iPhone beyond "barely affordable but classy social symbol" the iPod was so good to hit, and right into "outrageously priced executive toy".
Happy Feeling's gone
I'm not predicting a flop or anything. I think it'll revolutionize the way we use "phones" if other companies can get the hint, and I sure hope they'll do it quickly. All of a sudden the interface of my N70 seems awfully clunky...
*Yep, I live in Europe, which means the iPhone won't be available to me anytime soon anyhow.
rtfa people (Score:5, Informative)
Jobs is explicit quoted as saying:
Nowhere does it say there will be no third party apps available.
Good Jobs, Bad Jobs (Score:3, Insightful)
Then, we see the arrogant Jobs, insisting on a closed platform, locking out third party software. His statements about it being more like an iPod than a computer are ludicrous. The input capabilities of an iPod are non-existant, making third party software almost irrelevant. A closed iPhone will be hamstrung from the start.
I really like the UI. But, I'll probably wait a bit for the Video iPod version, with no phone features. The inability to load my own software (i.e. have full control of the device I pay for) is a big drawback, as is the two year commitment to Cingular. (And, no.. I'm not an Apple nay-sayer. I own two iPods and three Macs. I'm just not a fan of completely closed systems.)
it's Apple, not Cingular (Score:3, Informative)
The source of the restriction must be Apple, not Cingular.
holy CRAP... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
What does this have to do with being homosexual or happy and joyful? I don't understand.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Vorbis (Score:4, Interesting)
(Note: Fraunhofer is ironically not the highest quality encoder for MP3s anymore. LAME is considered much higher quality.)
Mac OS X should protect it... (Score:5, Insightful)
If Mac OS X is truly the foundation of the iPhone, buggy apps shouldn't be able to do the things you and Steve are warning against. Stability of the phone or network shouldn't be jeopardized by renegade user-installed applications because the OS and the networking protocol should lock them down to acceptable behavior.
I was fully going to switch to this phone in June. No joke. But this statement by Jobs has certainly installed boundaries for my imagination running wild with this device's potential. Specifically, I'm betting Apple will restrict 3rd-party-apps to prevent skype-like apps from being installed. Don't want to give the consumer TOO good of a deal.
Seth
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You have clearly never worked a day of tech support in your life.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems to me, and I didn't think of it until now, but Apple has always, in my mind, been on the same level an enemy
Re:Horrible. (Score:4, Insightful)
um, it does have SMS-client. As to 3G.... Who cares? I use my phone for lots if things, including websurfing and email. And my service includes 3G. And my phone supports 3G. And I switched it off withen 12 hours of getting the phone. Not because it costs money (my employer pays my bills), but because it sucks battery-life.
Right now, 3G is just a tickbox-feature. Operators and customers "want it", when in real life they have no use for it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Clearly, iChat would be seen as a threat to Cingular's revenue stream. It's pretty obvious why this wasn't included. That is an artifact of the Network monopoly marketplace we live in. It sucks, but it is what it is.
However, I know what Steve is doing. He knows that he cannot deploy a cellphone without a network. But once there are enough users of iPh