iPhone 4 launched

[Lord Nemesis]

@smoky

Have you used all those phones you are talking about ? Please don't rant about them just reading some reviews. Symbian handles multitasking very well. Let apple build a multitasking platrform on a measly ARM11 434Mhz processor and 128MB RAM and then we'll talk about this. :no:

Actually I was happily multi-tasking in Symbian OS on a 156MHz CPU without draining battery life too much and that more than 2 years before the first iPhone was released. Touch support may not be up to standards, but Symbian is the best, most mature and most widely used Smart phone OS. Neither Android nor iOS can match Symbian in such feats.

As for people criticizing other platforms without a solid basis, I think its a trend I see quite often on gsmarena as well and comes from iPhone users for the most part I guess. Most iPhone users are not geeks and quite often very ill informed about technology. Just check the comments for Samsung phones and you will see a lot of iPhone users commenting how samsung technology is all crap not knowing that the iPhone itself uses a lot of Samsung technology. Quite often a lot non apple technologies are mis attributed to apple as well claiming that Apple was the pioneer of those tech.

So no, I don't think it proves your point. It only proves that there are millions of people who will pay a lot of money for a product that is simplified and made to look pretty.

The number people ready to pay for iPhone doesn't change the fact that Apple makes all the decisions for those people with regards to the prodcut. It does not matter how badly a kid wants an ice cream, if the parent thinks its not a good idea, the kid wont be getting any. Its the same with how apple develops the iPhone. It doesn't matter how many people what a certain feature. It will be included only if Apple thinks it fits their vision for how people should be using their product. Why is apple banning any apps that create an alternative desktop or work with widgets? Its because they want the people to experience the phone as they intended.

 

[smoky004]

Actually I was happily multi-tasking in Symbian OS on a 156MHz CPU without draining battery life too much and that more than 2 years before the first iPhone was released. Touch support may not be up to standards, but Symbian is the best, most mature and most widely used Smart phone OS. Neither Android nor iOS can match Symbian in such feats.

My experience with symbian has been a little different.Slow load times, lots of crashes, unresponsive apps,etc,etc. damn i remember those dark ages when all i had was a symbian.

"water water everwhere, not a drop to drink"-----that sums up nokia. It's expert at stuffing it's phones with extra features( just like chinese manufacturers rolling out new phones these days), but when it comes to their usablity they fall behind.

 

[soumalidon]

Actually I was happily multi-tasking in Symbian OS on a 156MHz CPU without draining battery life too much and that more than 2 years before the first iPhone was released. Touch support may not be up to standards, but Symbian is the best, most mature and most widely used Smart phone OS. Neither Android nor iOS can match Symbian in such feats.

As for people criticizing other platforms without a solid basis, I think its a trend I see quite often on gsmarena as well and comes from iPhone users for the most part I guess. Most iPhone users are not geeks and quite often very ill informed about technology. Just check the comments for Samsung phones and you will see a lot of iPhone users commenting how samsung technology is all crap not knowing that the iPhone itself uses a lot of Samsung technology. Quite often a lot non apple technologies are mis attributed to apple as well claiming that Apple was the pioneer of those tech.

yup.. there are rumors that the CPU on the iphone 4 is derived from the same CPU that is there in the Samsung wave...

http://www.unwiredview.com/2010/06/...sung-wave-apparently-share-the-same-cpu-core/

 

[sabby]

The moment Apple starts losing customers over something like this, they'll put it in I'm sure.

So, according to your logic, a company ( or rather Apple ? ) shouldn't try / implement any good / new / productive features unless they face decreasing customers ? :O

On the contrary, I think there is also a large base who would buy Apple if certain things were implemented in Apple.

 

[smoky004]

Most of the people aren't dumb abt technology.It's just that the so-called extra features found in android phones are features that not many care abt and that's prolly the reason why apple left them out in the first place.Features like customization even cut,copy,paste.Most people aren't interested in customizing this phone even when they know how to do it.Many don't have the time, many couldn;'t care less.Android users were going ga ga over cut copy paste.But when it eventually came to iphone many iphone users first said how cool apple's implementation of cut copy paste was but subsequently found out they don't use it all that often.Android users will b**ch abt every uselesss feature missin on the iphone...doesn't matter whether they actually use it on their own phone or not...case in point flash...if i am not wrong android pjhones still can't run real flash.....all, they do is run flashlite which is hardly worth having.And baring a feww websites , all the othert flash contents are useless ads which we don;'t wanna watch in the first place.Of course the reason why apple doesn't want flash on iphone is economic and not because flash runs like garbage on a phone or the only thing that flash is really used for is ads but that's an entirely different argument.

Like someone said on engadget forums "sometimes I like to use something I don't have to tinker with or hack or have an overload of features I may only use once. Sometimes I want something that just works. It may be boring to some, but my smartphone is something I rather have do a few things great."

lets face it...you don't have to be a rocket scientist to use android."oh ! our system doesn't sell well because only nerds know how to use it"------that's the same argument linux nerds use.Oh! you have to be a geek to use linux and that's why it doesn't sell much.Linux still wouldn't sell a lot even if it were simpler to use....The reason these aren't widely used is because they don't offer the user experience people look for and boast abt a ton of features noone actually needs....try playing crysis on linux....

The reality is this...adroid offers a ton of extra "features" that even geeks don't use but they like to crib about lack of these on iphone just to prove that their phones are superior.Lets face it...what geeks really want is customization.....somethin which the average user can't be bothered about but the geeks really really want them! Infact when forced to pick ,they would rather opt for somethin wehich can be customized acc to their taste rather than pick something which offers a a much better user experience and is superoir .That's why they are up in arms against iphone simply b3ecause secretly they would love to own one provided it could be customized acc. to their taste.but everybody knows apple won't let that happen because apple likes building walled gardens the way they see fit and most users outside of the geeks don't really give a damn about customization any way.Maybe that's the real reason why android fanboi's hate iphone with a passion.

there was a time when many here compared iphone to nokia 5800 their first touchscreen device and said how much better 5800 One even wondered why apple didn't provide a stylus with their phone and let people choose from the best of both worlds??best of both worlds yeah right!! 5800 touvhinterface is nowhere near as good as the iphone yet for them it was the best of both worlds.Many geeks even severely criticized apple for not having a physical keyboard.these same geeks have gone out and purchased a highend HTC phone running android.Oh1 the lack of a physical keybaord wasn't that big a concern for them then.........Now all they crib abt is the lack of flash,expandable memmory on iphone.If it was unlimited expandable memory i would have agreed but the max expandable memory is only 32bg the same offered by iphone.I would rather prefer onbaord rather rather expandable memory espo when you can't run apps from that expandable memory...atleast not yet.but then considering the quality of games on the android, filling up your storage is not a problem any android user is ever gonna face

 

[Shripad]

^^ that is always the case about the phones.

There are always features that you dont use too much built in the phone.

Now I dont use FM at all, only time I need FM is in the car and I have my car stereo for that.

My last 3 phones didnt have FM, now the one I have does. And its nice to be able to fire it up sometimes. But its not really needed for me.

Even your beloved Apple now has front facing camera.

This used to be standard feature in 3G phones from all companies in past.

But its all but gone from most phones now as people know its just a bragging rights feature. Network is not good enough in most places to have proper video chat. Hell even our broadband connections were not good enough for for long period of time.

Now Apple has it and fanboys go Ga Ga over it.

Flash might die over time, but soo many commercial sites use flash at the moment, bank sites, news sites and many more. Still its fine as honestly there is a limit of what kinda browsing you will be doing on phone.

Phone custamisation is one time job, we are going to set it up as we want once and then keep it that way or change it a bit when we want to. But does that mean its not needed?

Copy past was, is and will be vital functionality. If you think you dont need that, you dont need smartphone.

And smokey your comment above shows how ill informed you are about other tech.

Take an example of storage.

Android is able to use Apps2SD For long time now.

Its native feature now with Froyo.

You talk about people complaining about Apple not having physical keyboard and buy HTC.

Well HTC and almost all other manufacturers have phones with keyboard and touch only phones as well. Its user's choice.

Nokia 5800 was never meant to compete against iPhone. It was gona use Symbian and Nokia made it very clear they will be focusing on handwriting recognition and will be using resistive tech for screen. It was 1/3rd the cost of iPhone. And it was very good bang for the buck at that time.

It is even today but its obviously outdated now.

And Android is getting some quality games now. Not to mention entire NES, SNES, GBA collection is now playable on Android phones just like jailbroken iPhone.

It still wont be competing to iPhone any time soon on this front though and thats a given fact.

Its better to have options than to wait for a company to give it to you on a stick later.

Apple has done much better job than usual with iPhone 4, but they are still loosing on god knows how many potential buyers because of these small things. You can always give them as extra options to the buyer. And they do, but over a period by when phone is already a year or so old.

 

[letmein]

Interesting read...

www.gawker.com/5558442/how-apple-tricks-you

 

[ashr]

So, according to your logic, a company ( or rather Apple ? ) shouldn't try / implement any good / new / productive features unless they face decreasing customers ? :O

way to miss the point. they've already stuffed in more than their target consumer base would care for. an average consumer would look at an iPhone and go "woah, that's a shitload of features.". Apple takes care to implement just enough "new" features every revision to make the same type of people react that way. they're not going to give them everything at one go. they're obviously in it for profits and they're very clever at marketing.

the people you're referring to make up a very small percentage of potential iPhone buyers.

 

[Lord Nemesis]

yup.. there are rumors that the CPU on the iphone 4 is derived from the same CPU that is there in the Samsung wave...

iPhone 4, iPad and Samsung Wave apparently share the same CPU core

Actually every iPhone released so far runs on Samsung technology. Even A4 is mostly a modified and re-branded hummingbird. Most iPhone fanboi's are ignorant of this and I see a lot them on gsmarena and various forums saying that all samsung technology is garbage not realizing that they are calling iPhone garbage in the process. Then there was this hardcore fanboi who said that Americans should stop buying Samsung or Nokia as they are not made in US and that they should only buy Apple because they are made in US. Guess the guy doesn't know that his beloved iPhone is built around samsung hardware and manufactured by Foxconn in China.

 

[amol_cool]

That Kind of proves my point don't you think? Masses don't need smart phones and most often they don't know what they need apart from making calls. So Apple (Jobs) decides what and how people should be using their products. As you said they don't cater to people who really need smart phones, so often requests from people are ignored, they make their own decisions of what and when to give something to the people based on the assumption that people are too dumb (wrt technology) to decide for themselves what they want. With iPhone, it has always been when and what Apple wants to give you than when and what people want. With all the restrictions deliberately imposed, iPhone is more like a gloried multimedia phone than a smart phone despite having a potential smart phone OS. In fact Its more like an electronic appliance. They don't want you opening it, they don't want you customizing it and they don't want you doing anything with it other than using it as they intended in their visions for the product.

Thing is you still are seeing it from a techie's POV and not from the masses. Perhaps you have not seen people who buy E-series and other high end phones because they want to use features like QWERTY, GPS, mails etc but don't figure it out ever and then leave the hopes. That high end phone for them thereafter becomes nothing but a phone that just makes and receives calls! Conclusion? they feel cheated! Here's where Apple comes into play. It makes those very features usable to such masses quite easily. I don't think more than 20% of the people who buy smartphone are aware of what all could be done with their phone! Heck, I don't think even 10% know their phone completely! This is where Apple leads by leaps and bounds. It makes the user help make use of its ALL features and that too easily.

And it's because of THIS that they don't approve any app that changes this very user experience. Apple has always been about 'user-experience' and that's what they perfect at. Take a poll of the masses and by that I mean genuine masses and I am pretty sure more than 90% would say iPhone has best interface among all available mobile operating systems. That's for the masses. But if you are a geek, you are not stopped from jail breaking it and using all the apps that you want. e.g. multitasking app is available since so long for such people and they use it as well.

I am not saying that I am a nerd and know every phone in and out but hell I am not that noob or dumb that I can't figure out my way to use a feature in any given phone! And considering that, I find iPhone's UI to the best and easiest. In other words, if you give a person (with no mobile phone usage history) two phones iPhone and Android or any other smartphone, I think in majority of the cases he would feel iPhone easier to use.

My experience with symbian has been a little different.Slow load times, lots of crashes, unresponsive apps,etc,etc. damn i remember those dark ages when all i had was a symbian.

"water water everwhere, not a drop to drink"-----that sums up nokia. It's expert at stuffing it's phones with extra features( just like chinese manufacturers rolling out new phones these days), but when it comes to their usablity they fall behind.

I gotta second that! Whenever I see nokia that only thing that comes to my mind is "Loading Gallery..."

Interesting read...

How Apple Tricks You

Gawker??! Not talking about the link you posted, but after that "lost and found" incident, I wouldn't trust ANY post they would make on Apple. Look at their posts on the WWWDC event. Every post reflected that bitter feeling that Apple gave them!

 

[Lord Nemesis]

"sometimes I like to use something I don't have to tinker with or hack or have an overload of features I may only use once. Sometimes I want something that just works. It may be boring to some, but my smartphone is something I rather have do a few things great."

That description perfectly fits a non-techie or someone with limited interest in tech or smart phone features using a typical multimedia phone (not smart phone). In fact that fits the profile of your typical iPhone user.

there was a time when many here compared iphone to nokia 5800 their first touchscreen device and said how much better 5800 One even wondered why apple didn't provide a stylus with their phone and let people choose from the best of both worlds??best of both worlds yeah right!! 5800 touvhinterface is nowhere near as good as the iphone yet for them it was the best of both worlds.

Nokia had a touch screen phone before Apple did, So 5800 is not their first touch screen device. 5800 may not have the best finger touch, but its still great in many ways and I still consider it way better than iPhone 3G in value for money. In fact a few iPhone users at my office have played with my 5800 and liked it very much. There were also a few who were going to get can iPhone 3G, but after seeing both in action were convinced that spending 2.5 time more on the iPhone is a waste of money. They got the 5800 and pretty satisfied with it. I got mine as a temp purchase after my previous symbian touch screen smart phone conked off, but I am still using it while waiting for my perfect smart phone to appear. 5800 offers most of the basic features I need like expandable storage, copy paste support, web browsing along with flashlite, media playback and decent battery life and a few others. Just like features are not everything for some people, there are people for whom apps and capacitive touch are not everything. While the finger touch on 5800 is not bad, I cannot always use my fingers on the phone for various reasons (like when they are dirty), So I find the stylus convenient. For a capacitive screen you would have a buy a special stylus for that.

Now all they crib abt is the lack of flash,expandable memmory on iphone.If it was unlimited expandable memory i would have agreed but the max expandable memory is only 32bg the same offered by iphone.I would rather prefer onbaord rather rather expandable memory espo when you can't run apps from that expandable memory...atleast not yet.but then considering the quality of games on the android, filling up your storage is not a problem any android user is ever gonna face

I can run apps from memory card on Symbian and I think the limitation on Android has also been overcome. Also memory card slot does meet the goal of unlimited memory though not on a single card. You don't always have to carry data on a singe card do you? Memory cards are compact and light. So carry as many as you want in your phone case. I have done the same with my phone.

What you summarized is basically what ashr and me have been saying all along that iPhone's are not targeted at geeks. They are for the avg people who don't need a smart phone or not bothered about smart phone features and would rather leave it to Apple to decide how they should use the phone.

--- Updated Post - Automerged ---

Thing is you still are seeing it from a techie's POV and not from the masses. Perhaps you have not seen people who buy E-series and other high end phones because they want to use features like QWERTY, GPS, mails etc but don't figure it out ever and then leave the hopes. That high end phone for them thereafter becomes nothing but a phone that just makes and receives calls! Conclusion? they feel cheated! Here's where Apple comes into play. It makes those very features usable to such masses quite easily. I don't think more than 20% of the people who buy smartphone are aware of what all could be done with their phone! Heck, I don't think even 10% know their phone completely! This is where Apple leads by leaps and bounds. It makes the user help make use of its ALL features and that too easily.

You are forgetting that Apple achieved that usability by heavily restricting the functionality and flexibility. Its obviously easier to learn everything when there is not much to learn. I do see it from the POV masses as well, that's why I don't think its bad thing if Apple decides how their products are used by the people. I do understand that they are not for geeks who want a lot of functionality and flexibility from their gadgets. Like you said most of the software restrictions can be broken by jail breaking, but you cannot do anything about the hardware ones. Software wise iPhone 3GS had almost every thing I wanted from a phone except maybe for Flash/flash lite support and a couple other things. But hardware wise, Non expandable storage is always a massive deal breaker for me for any device of the sort.

 

[ashr]

The number people ready to pay for iPhone doesn't change the fact that Apple makes all the decisions for those people with regards to the prodcut. It does not matter how badly a kid wants an ice cream, if the parent thinks its not a good idea, the kid wont be getting any. Its the same with how apple develops the iPhone. It doesn't matter how many people what a certain feature. It will be included only if Apple thinks it fits their vision for how people should be using their product. Why is apple banning any apps that create an alternative desktop or work with widgets? Its because they want the people to experience the phone as they intended.

But the parents who don't buy their kids ice cream are still the consumers and not the sellers. If the majority of consumers really wanted... say an orange flavour, they'd probably get it eventually. Until that the ice cream company would still try to milk out everything they can from whatever they already have to offer.

The first iPhone lacked bluetooth support but clearly, Apple's vision was not that people should stop using or not want it. The moment there was enough backlash to warrant implementing bluetooth, it was added. Features do get added when enough people (enough to make business sense by Apple standards) ask for it. Although they could have probably loaded the first iPhone with most of the features that the 3GS has, it would have really hurt their marketing options when trying to sell the newer versions. Then they'd have to take the same road as the other companies and try to improve only hardware. Take the HTC Legend and Desire for example... there's hardly any real world difference between them. Even some tech geeks wouldn't be able to justify paying an extra 10k for a faster processor and a bigger screen alone as when it comes to day to day usage, a Legend can probably do everything the Desire can.

The point I'm trying to make is iPhones aren't driven by Apple's vision of what an ideal phone should be like; they know that eventually they will have to implement those missing features. iPhones are driven by how much (or how little in this case) Apple can get away with at a given point of time, thanks to the "ignorance" of the masses.

Banning alternative desktops is a dick move indeed but then again, if enough people asked for alternative desktop options, I'm quite certain it'll be added just like every other "revolutionary feature" we've seen with each revision.

 

[abbY]

^^ I agree
I want to add in that apple has been the only company to roll out updates regularly and the updates have been backward compatible (till now) even for the 2+ year old iPhone 2G. Apple probably understood that if they tried to include every single functionality in the book with their first phone they would have been inundated with problems, the original iPhone covered all the basics perfectly, just lacked the advanced features so Apple rolled out features as they perfected it. This is truly commendable. I prefer this approach, rather than trying to please the world get the basics right and then the advanced features can introduced in time.

 

[logistopath]

An interesting read on Lifehacker comparing iOS 4 and Android, in what looks like an unbiased view on most parts.
iPhone vs. Android Showdown: Which Phone Is Best for Power Users?

 

[YoGi-Sama]

^ I would agree with one of the comment in that article...

The way I see it. With how insanely awesome smartphones are now-a-days. There really isn't a loser or winner.

But if we all understood that, where would iPhone bashers rant and android haters blurb? :bleh:

In the end of the day, it's simple... buy whatever you like. With the advancements in technology there is little you can go wrong with. I love the convenience of my iPhone, I played around with it but eventually found out that the fun to tweak around with your phone doesn't last that long. At least it didn't for me. So I just want to do whatever that I do on my phone and as long as things don't get in my way I'm happy. Apple delivered me on that front and I would be more than happy to stay in that familiar zone. It hardly matter to me if someone thinks of me dumb masses or whatever. Phones is something I don't find worth spending my time tinkering, I have my systems and others stuff for geeky hobbies.

 

[amol_cool]

^ I would agree with one of the comment in that article...

But if we all understood that, where would iPhone bashers rant and android haters blurb? :bleh:

In the end of the day, it's simple... buy whatever you like. With the advancements in technology there is little you can go wrong with. I love the convenience of my iPhone, I played around with it but eventually found out that the fun to tweak around with your phone doesn't last that long. At least it didn't for me. So I just want to do whatever that I do on my phone and as long as things don't get in my way I'm happy. Apple delivered me on that front and I would be more than happy to stay in that familiar zone. It hardly matter to me if someone thinks of me dumb masses or whatever. Phones is something I don't find worth spending my time tinkering, I have my systems and others stuff for geeky hobbies.

I agree with you completely on this. It eventually boils down to personal choice only than just technology or features. Just like a guy might find a particular girl hot while other finds the same girl a turn off (Not a right metaphor but it has a hot babe so.. )

Let's end this discussion here and create a history of a "peaceful conclusion" in first ever Apple Vs Android/other OS thread

 

[m-jeri]

In the end of the day, it's simple... buy whatever you like. With the advancements in technology there is little you can go wrong with. I love the convenience of my iPhone, I played around with it but eventually found out that the fun to tweak around with your phone doesn't last that long. At least it didn't for me. So I just want to do whatever that I do on my phone and as long as things don't get in my way I'm happy. Apple delivered me on that front and I would be more than happy to stay in that familiar zone. It hardly matter to me if someone thinks of me dumb masses or whatever. Phones is something I don't find worth spending my time tinkering, I have my systems and others stuff for geeky hobbies.

Very well said.

 

[FaH33m]

^ I would agree with one of the comment in that article...

But if we all understood that, where would iPhone bashers rant and android haters blurb? :bleh:

In the end of the day, it's simple... buy whatever you like. With the advancements in technology there is little you can go wrong with. I love the convenience of my iPhone, I played around with it but eventually found out that the fun to tweak around with your phone doesn't last that long. At least it didn't for me. So I just want to do whatever that I do on my phone and as long as things don't get in my way I'm happy. Apple delivered me on that front and I would be more than happy to stay in that familiar zone. It hardly matter to me if someone thinks of me dumb masses or whatever. Phones is something I don't find worth spending my time tinkering, I have my systems and others stuff for geeky hobbies.

Exactly my thoughts . No matter what people say , one thing Ive realized is after using the iPhone I just cant get back to any other smart phone(Ive tried about 5-6 Android phones till date including one of the best -ie . HTC Desire. ) . Some of the phones I tried were amazing and almost fell in love with the Desire but still the touch sensitivity of iPhone is something I was missing . The way I do things on the phone with just a finger swipe and have got used to type insanely fast on the amazing touch QWERTY .Just love the phone .
I would be really glad to shift , if atleast one Android phone comes up with a similar touch experience as the iPhone.

 

[Gannu]

I think iGo said whatever little I had in my mind.

And ashr perfectly summed up one part (in another thread of his) which I have been asking the masses who have used the phones with capacitive touch screens from HTC - the kind of smooth UI. Thank you so much.

 

[smoky004]

600,000 iPhone 4s pre-ordered, Apple apologizes for issues

We were amazed last night to see both Apple and AT&T sell out of iPhone 4 pre-order units despite the sustained ordering issues, and now we know why: Apple managed to move 600,000 iPhones in just a single day. Yes, that's a lot -- Apple says it's the largest number of pre-orders it's ever taken in one day, and AT&T says it's ten times as many orders as it took for the iPhone 3GS. It's not all sunshine and roses, though; Apple's also apologizing to the large numbers of people who simply couldn't get through yesterday, and AT&T's suspended pre-orders entirely until the device is in stock. We're guessing AT&T might also be putting the stopper on things while it gets those pesky security issues under control, but there's a chance the carrier is just trying to deal with the insane order volume coming from Apple's servers -- it served up 13 million eligibility checks yesterday, shattering the previous record by three times. All in all, it looks like Apple has a hot item on its hands here -- almost too hot to handle. Here's Apple's full statement:

600,000 iPhone 4s pre-ordered, Apple apologizes for issues -- Engadget