Jobs and Woz: Together Again?

[arn]

Wireless Week joins the fray with what appears to be further speculation regarding Apple's entry into the "smart" phone market. While this may simply be a rehash of iPhone rumors, it's the first to bring Woz and Jobs back together:

Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple, and his former partner, Steve Wozniak, are said to be developing a "smart" phone in an attempt to kick-start the market for next-generation mobile phones in the same way that the company's computers popularised personal computing.

Wozniak has been involved with Danger.com since late last year. Danger is due to release it's combo cell-phone and web-browsing handheld ("Hiptop") in the fall.

[Nipsy]

The Danger device has nothing to do with Jobs.

He may have been seen holding one at some point, but there is no involvement as of yet.

I beleive Woz sits on Danger's board because he had a relationship with Andy Rubin (Danger's CEO), when Rubin worked at Apple. He's also a notorious gadget freak!

Also, Woz has been involved with Danger, Inc., not Danger.com. Danger.com is merely Danger, Inc.'s marketing and info site, and not their company name (the .com as part of company became passé in the pets.com days).

I've been using the Danger device for a few weeks, and while terribly cool, it is targeted at a teen demographic, with key points being ring tones, games, SMS, crappy snapshots, etc.

This is not the Apple arena...we've seen that ever since the fruit flavored hippy dog computers went sleek.

The Danger device is all Java, so I predict that when they hit market, you'll see plenty of good apps and hacks, but for not, it is a teen toy with a browser.

Also, as an odd aside, mine has service from Cingular, but a bit 'T-Mobile' printed on it...

[drastik]

It'd be pretty cool to have them together after all these years. Although, I see Woz's new thing Wheels Of Zeus (guess where that came from) instead of Danger.

[arn]

Originally posted by drastik
It'd be pretty cool to have them together after all these years. Although, I see Woz's new thing Wheels Of Zeus (guess where that came from) instead of Danger.

oops - you're right... article updated.

It'll be interesting to see what comes from Woz....

arn

[theaz]

yeah, if this rumor is correct, it definitely will want to be better designed than the Hiptop... The aesthetics of the Hiptop do not look well polished.

[Nipsy]

Originally posted by theaz
yeah, if this rumor is correct, it definitely will want to be better designed than the Hiptop... The aesthetics of the Hiptop do not look well polished.

The HipTop is fairly well laid out as a browsing device, but it is a horrible phone (ergonomically).

It is convex, so the phone doesn't match the contour of the face. Also, the UI needs more work. It is not very intuitive, and the natural movement often takes you to the incorrect place.

Those problems aside, it is a VERY cool device, and will be the Christmas gift of choice for the 12-20 crowd.

Success in this market should lead to a rev 3 (rev 2 is color) device with better usablity, and more funding to make more adult apps available.

[groov']

Apple has a good chance to surprise ZDnet's anchordesk, IMO.

Look at this article: "Why I'm still waiting for the perfect PDA/phone."

http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stor...878490,00.html

They chose the iPod as th best mp3 player, so why not the iPhone ...

[wilburpan]

Originally posted by Nipsy


The HipTop is fairly well laid out as a browsing device, but it is a horrible phone (ergonomically).

It is convex, so the phone doesn't match the contour of the face....

While I was viewing the flash demo, I had a thought -- why do all combo phone/PDA makers put the PDA screen on the same side of the device as the phone speaker and microphone? (I know that there are better terms, but "earpiece" and "mouthpiece" sound out of place when referring to an all-in-one device.)

By moving the PDA screen to the back side of the phone, there would be a few advantages:

1. No more smudging the PDA screen with your face when you put the phone up to your ear.

2. You could build functionality into the PDA side of the device (keypad, protective lip around the screen) without worrying about keeping the phone side concave.

3. For fun, I imagined that my old Handspring Visor had a phone built into its backside. Tapping on the screen to "make a call" and then putting it against my face to "talk" seemed to be a very natural motion, whether my Visor was on my desk or in my hand.

Just a thought. Maybe I should try to patent this - it would be a better income plan than my present one, which is to play the Megamillions game.

[Zaren]

So where can a fella find out more about this Wheels of Zeus thing? woz.com is, strangely enough, failing to respond right now for me...

[aggemam]

Actually, the speaker and microphone of the Nokia 9110 is located on the other side than the screen, like you describe.

However, if you hold a PDA in your left hand and tap on the screen, you would have to turn it 180 degrees when moving it to your ear. I would find that rather annoying, I think.

[aggemam]

To add to my message, I find it more annoying the larger the device is.

On small devices, I wouldn't mind the microphone and speaker being located on the opposite side.

[Foocha]

I don't believe people will be holding handsets to their ears for much longer. Especially if they become converged PDA devices - who wants to hold a brick to their ear anyway.

I'm convinced that Bluetooth wireless headsets are the future, and will sort this problem out once and for all.

[rainman::|:|]

wasn't the reunion of Jobs and Woz one of the signs of the apocolypse?



i could see, hypothetically speaking, Apple wanting to stick a tiny, cheap GPS unit in a phone/PDA combo... isn't that what wheels of zeus does? but alas, until there's more proof, i can't imagine Woz having enough time to help design a phone for Apple... maybe jobs would use him (Jobs use Woz? never...) as a one-man focus group, as someone said he's a gaget-freak...


pnw

[Pants]

Originally posted by Foocha
I don't believe people will be holding handsets to their ears for much longer. Especially if they become converged PDA devices - who wants to hold a brick to their ear anyway.

I'm convinced that Bluetooth wireless headsets are the future, and will sort this problem out once and for all.

errr..... so you would walk around with your earpiece/headset combo permanently stuck on your head??? remind me not to stare at you on the tube...

no - small phones *are* more convenient that a lump of plastic stuck to your head. The real need is to design an aerial that doesnt radiate thru your head - now that would be a major selling point for health conscious parents.

I am not a big believer in these new generation phones - the phone companies are betting the bank on java games to dig them out of a financial hole, whilst PDA's really havent caught on beyond the 'meeedyaaa' types and company car owning reps. Apple - stay out of this market , its yet another limited niche market, and all the indicators say joe public arent prepared to pay the price required for extra features.

[mymemory]

I think Apple would be the perfect candidate to develop next generation mobil phone, no, it is different that Apple developing mobile phones.

I mean this because the phones functionality depends alot of the geographic region, I mean each country uses different systems.

Venezuela is the 2 country with more cell phones (% of the population) after Japan! Now, will Apple produce a cell phone compatible with the Venezuelan market as well Indonesian, Swis and North American? Apple produces computers and software that can be used world wide.

Capish?

[skunk]

It's implants! I can see it now! "Apple gets under your skin!" Subcutaneous transceivers! Go, Apple!!

[evildead]

I would love a next gen cell phone with some PDA functionality with out the bulk. I have been cosidering getting a Trio as well as a few others but If Apple is making one... then I'm going to hold off. If it runs BSD... that would be great. I am all so interested in the Sharp Zaurus. It runs Linux and has all the Linux tools that I need for work. I want an Apple iPhone with some PDA functionality, runs BSD, a serial port (or USB to Serial cable) so I can tip into console applicances and servers, with all the styal that only Apple can give us

-evildead

[evildead]

Originally posted by mymemory


I think Apple would be the perfect candidate to develop next generation mobil phone, no, it is different that Apple developing mobile phones.

I mean this because the phones functionality depends alot of the geographic region, I mean each country uses different systems.

Venezuela is the 2 country with more cell phones (% of the population) after Japan! Now, will Apple produce a cell phone compatible with the Venezuelan market as well Indonesian, Swis and North American? Apple produces computers and software that can be used world wide.

Capish?

The world cell phone market is still relitively untapped. If apple could sell Phones to contries where the cost of a land line is so much that there is only one phone in the center of town... they could make a killing.

-evildead

[ibjoshua]

Originally posted by evildead
The world cell phone market is still relitively untapped. If apple could sell Phones to contries where the cost of a land line is so much that there is only one phone in the center of town... they could make a killing.

-evildead

selling phones to poor people would be a great idea but i don't think many would want to pay the extra $ for all the industrial design that goes into apple products.

evildead if you're a machead don't you think your avatar should look a little more like this...

josh

[Thresher]

Earlier this week, we had Paul Doherty of the Digit Group speak at my office.

He's an architect and a consultant. He's done some consulting for Apple, especially on the new stores.

According to him, Apple is developing 3D versions of each store for online browsing. These stores would have their inventory system directly linked to the web, so as you tour a virtual store and chose something, it comes off the shelf. If it's the last one, then the item is removed from display.

But this isn't even the most interesting part. He says that each Apple store employee will have a device (he said it would be like a cross between an iPod and a PDA) that would be linked directly to the website and inventory system. As items are purchased from that particular store, the employees would be notified and they would prepare the item for delivery or pickup.

This sounds to me like either an advanced cell phone that can link directly into the inventory and email system or possibly a wirelessly enabled PDA.

He made it clear that this was an Apple device and that this was all supposed to happen by November.

The guy seemed to be a bit of a blowhard and I don't know his credentials, so take this all with a grain of salt.

[m00ndog]

Everything I've heard/read about iPhone (here and elsewhere) suggests that it's going to be a mobile/cellular device. That's all fine and good, but what I would really like to do is plug a regular phone into my Mac and use it to call regular phones over the internet. That's the iPhone I want.

Actually, we already can get that here in Japan by subscribing to Yahoo's 12Mbps ADSL ISP service. We can call anywhere in Japan or the U.S. for a flat 7.5 yen/minute (about 6 cents/3 minutes). That's a great rate--cheaper than NTT, the local phone monolopy, charges for calls across the street! But that's not all. If you call another Yahoo customer, the call is free!!

I haven't figured out if Yahoo Japan's free calls include U.S. Yahoo! Messenger customers. For some reason the voice conversation capability of Yahoo Messenger (U.S.) seems to be secret. (Friends a nd other web sites say it exists, but it is not mentioned on the Yahoo! Messenger site that I can find.) And worse, I'm informed that the voice capability is Winwonk only. If anyone is using Yahoo! Messenger, please let me know if this is true.

Even though I can get IP Phone service though Yahoo, I'd like to see it integrated into OS X so it's portable from ISP to ISP and has the added features that Apple would surely add.

[vniow]

It does work for US customers. My mom used it to talk to her sister all the time. Shee hasn't used it in a while though. The delay is hell on dialup.

[m00ndog]

It does work for US customers. My mom used it to talk to her sister all the time. Shee hasn't used it in a while though. The delay is hell on dialup.

Thank you for responding. I'm wondering if you can clarify as I mentioned two slightly different things. One was voice conversations over Yahoo! Messenger on Macs and the other was free telephone calls over the internet by Japan based Yahoo customers (the service is called BBPhone in Japan).

Would I be correct in assuming that your mother was using the former (calls via Yahoo! Messenger using Macs)?

The connections are fast and clear, by the way, using BBPhone on Yahoo's ADSL lines.

(If we're too far off-topic, someone please give me a nudge.... :-)

[vniow]

She was using the voice option in Yahoo. I wasn't even aware that they offered free calls with the messenger. Must be a Japan-only thing.
BTW, it worked great except for the delay. If you have a decent dial up (which I don't) or broadband of any kind, I highly reccomend it. The quality isn't that great, but it does what it needs to do.