Apple Television Ad Says iPhone "Coming June 29th"

[bretm]

Bingo!

It may be a wild guess to you but you may well end up being right...

Take a glimpse at that article on David Pogue's blog:

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/01/13/ultimate-iphone-faqs-list-part-2/

Shortly after the iPhone unveiling, John Markoff did a very interesting interview with Steve Jobs.

Discussing the need of having Flash on the iPhone, here's what the conversation lead to:



Fast-forward to the D5 conference, where Jobs revealed that the tv will get access to Youtube content. Then it was confirmed by Apple that Youtube content would be indeed converted to h.264 (obviously from the original source video) to be displayed on the tv without using Flash, with a higher quality.

Combine this with hints from Google that they're planning to release other iPhone widgets, and you get a pretty high probability that there will be a Youtube iPhone widget in the near future, if not at launch.

Since the iPhone has a REAL browser, then it has flash. I'd say about 80percent of the sites I use have flash. Including this one. The ads are flash. Most sites use flash for the interface. A web browser has to have flash or it is rendered completely useless. Buttons, menus, elements, navigation, etc. they all use flash. Flash video is the most prevalent video out there. It's infinitely more versatile than QT. It can be embedded in animations, have other anims embedded in it, etc. So if you have a real browser, there's no need for a special youtube function. You have YouTube itself.

 

[bretm]

Does anyone else find it strange that the answer(accept) key is on the right side of the phone instead of the left like EVERY other cell phone that has been made? Think different.

It's not universal. I've had different moto phones that have it both ways.

 

[bretm]

Nice to feel welcome.

Actually Darwen also did a great job of summarising the inconsistency here, on Macrumors.

For a device that we've been watching for so long, it's not surprising that so many people have picked up on it!

It seems to me that an iChat icon would be unlikely, as it would undercut SMS spend, etc.

I have been wondering for some time what happens to open apps when you hit the Home button. e.g. - is there a quick way to return to your last email screen, or otherwise without having to step back manually?

Perhaps this may be an option for 'Captain Hidden Button'?

I'd bet that if you hit the home button again, it'll take you right back where you were.

 

[Tadow]

It's not universal. I've had different moto phones that have it both ways.

Maybe, but don't most current phones have the green(accept,call,etc.) on the left and the red(deny, end,etc.) on the right. I've only ever had symbian phones but it seems like most follow suit.

 

[macNco]

Interesting how the iPhone used to say "at&t" but now it says "AT&T" despite the fact that the official company logo is "at&t."

...Inconsistencies like that bother me.

(For the record, I prefer "AT&T" more - for both the iPhone and logo.)

I've had a Cingular phone for years. This weekend the "Cingular" name disappeared from my screen when it was opened and now reads "AT&T" in upper case. I think that is just how they are going to have their name read on th screen.

 

[bigmc6000]

Yep

Hi

That's what I said...Or was trying to say...I think. If I understand it correctly, the only argument you are making is that you may not need to be in the qualified to upgrade period ( usually a few months before your contract term is ending ). You are saying that you think it will be where one can just choose to add 2 years to their existing contract and purchase an iPhone any time during their current contract?

That's exactly what I'm saying. It's just like changing your current plan - most carriers require you to commit to 2 years every time you add something to your plan. It's just that with this situation since the phone isn't subsidized by buying it you are essentially changing your plan. Besides - AT&T wouldn't be stupid enough to turn away all those hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people who are mid-cycle and want to buy an iPhone and an upgraded service to boot.

 

[martijn.s]

Nice to feel welcome.

Actually Darwen also did a great job of summarising the inconsistency here, on Macrumors.

For a device that we've been watching for so long, it's not surprising that so many people have picked up on it!

It seems to me that an iChat icon would be unlikely, as it would undercut SMS spend, etc.

I have been wondering for some time what happens to open apps when you hit the Home button. e.g. - is there a quick way to return to your last email screen, or otherwise without having to step back manually?

Perhaps this may be an option for 'Captain Hidden Button'?

from all the demo's i have seen i conclude that the open apps stay as they are.

in fact the home page works as a dock, it opens applications that are not, and just brings them to the front when they are.

 

[martijn.s]

Since the iPhone has a REAL browser, then it has flash. I'd say about 80percent of the sites I use have flash. Including this one. The ads are flash. Most sites use flash for the interface. A web browser has to have flash or it is rendered completely useless. Buttons, menus, elements, navigation, etc. they all use flash. Flash video is the most prevalent video out there. It's infinitely more versatile than QT. It can be embedded in animations, have other anims embedded in it, etc. So if you have a real browser, there's no need for a special youtube function. You have YouTube itself.

i agree completely.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Since the iPhone has a REAL browser, then it has flash. I'd say about 80percent of the sites I use have flash. Including this one. The ads are flash. Most sites use flash for the interface. A web browser has to have flash or it is rendered completely useless. Buttons, menus, elements, navigation, etc. they all use flash. Flash video is the most prevalent video out there. It's infinitely more versatile than QT. It can be embedded in animations, have other anims embedded in it, etc. So if you have a real browser, there's no need for a special youtube function. You have YouTube itself.

Sorry, check again. There has not only been *NO* confirmation of Flash, there has been an outright denial that it is certain. It might be there, it might not.

"80%" of web sites use Flash? No. 80% of web banner ads, maybe. I have an ad blocker running, and I see no Flash on MacRumors. "Most sites" use Flash for their interface? Really? Which ones? Out of the 38 web sites I at least semi-regularly visit from my Bookmarks, ZERO use Flash for their interface. Many have Flash ads, some have Flash subsections, but none use it for their main interface.

As for Flash video being the most prevalent? If true, (which I dispute, but can't find any cold hard statistics,) then it's almost entirely YouTube-embedded. When I see a flash video, it is almost always a YouTube embedded video. I still see plenty of linked MPG, WMV, and QT videos. And QuickTime is JUST as versatile as Flash for video, if not moreso. (You can embed Flash *IN* a QuickTime; you can't do the reverse.)

In short, there is no guarantee that Flash is included, and lacking Flash does not make it less of a "real" browser. (For example, there is no Flash for 64-bit Internet Explorer; this mere fact doesn't make it any less of a "real" browser, as the browser itself has 100% the same code as the 32-bit version.)

 

[BaldBrent]

I wonder how many phone calls "Pacific Catch" restaurant (the calamari place) has received from lonely, bored dorks since the new IPhone ad began running with their actual phone number on it?

(I bet I am not the only one that called...)

 

[cycocelica]

It really is too bad that I am not in the Seattle area the day of the release so I can see the madness around the Apple store or the people camping out.

 

[diamond.g]

I showed my wife all three ads. She is interested, but unsure if it would render her Nano (4gb) useless. She got it for her bday this year. It is between the iPhone and the PS3 for me.

Geez the switch to AT&T is gonna be painful...

 

[aero77]

how did they find pacific catch?

how did the person in the ad find the closest seafood restaurants unless he had put in a location or used GPS? Wouldn't this be a hassle if you had to input a location every time? You could store locations but chances are if you don't have GPS in your car, then you prbably won't have a stored location in your iPhone for where you are. I just think that would have a GPS option because they want to make the iPhone easy. I don't think that GPS receivers are that big, they might have one in the case (by the way don't all phones have GPS for conveying 911 purposes?).

 

[Anonymous Freak]

how did the person in the ad find the closest seafood restaurants unless he had put in a location or used GPS? Wouldn't this be a hassle if you had to input a location every time? You could store locations but chances are if you don't have GPS in your car, then you prbably won't have a stored location in your iPhone for where you are. I just think that would have a GPS option because they want to make the iPhone easy. I don't think that GPS receivers are that big, they might have one in the case (by the way don't all phones have GPS for conveying 911 purposes?).

As has been said before (and not just from me,) all phones sold in the U.S. since Jan 1, 2005 have had to have "location tracking" capability with an accuracy of 100 meters. This doesn't have to be a true satellite GPS based system, but most phones use it, as the other option would involve the cell carriers upgrading their system to provide triangulation from the cell towers.

 

[VL-Tone]

Since the iPhone has a REAL browser, then it has flash.

Yes the iPhone has a REAL browser, but Flash is a plug-in. If you remove the Flash plug-in from Safari on your Mac, it's still a real browser.

I'd say about 80percent of the sites I use have flash. Including this one. The ads are flash.

So what if you miss these processor-hogging loud Flash ads? I wouldn't miss them. If you remove the ads in your equation, I bet that less than 5% of the site you visit use Flash.

Most sites use flash for the interface. A web browser has to have flash or it is rendered completely useless. Buttons, menus, elements, navigation, etc. they all use flash.

That's ridiculous, sorry if it sounds mean, but you clearly don't know what you're talking about. Web sites rarely use flash for their buttons, menus and interface. You must confuse this kind of interactivity with javascript, which is everywhere in web interfaces. Can you provide any specific example of a site that uses Flash for its interface? The only one I can think of is homestarrunner.com, which is a Flash cartoon site.

Heck, YouTube itself doesn't even use Flash for its interface. Aside from the YouTube video player, the rest of the site interface is based on javascript and css. Tell me, if all YouTube visitors automatically have Flash installed, why don't they build the rest of the interface with it?

There are three main reasons why Websites rarely use Flash for their interfaces:

1. Flash can be a processor-hog, particularly on Macs, having multiple Flash elements in a single page would make them slow down each-other. If you leave multiple windows open that have multiple Flash elements in them, it could be worse.

2. Flash content is hard to index by search engines, and impossible to use with a page translator. You cannot use the "Find" feature of a browser to find text that's inside a Flash element. Any utility, feature or script that does anything with good old html text will fail to do anything with Flash. Font size buttons in a browsers won't have any effects on Flash text for example.

3. Flash content doesn't scale like an html page does. Sure you make the whole Flash element bigger or smaller since it's mostly done with vectors, but it's nothing like html and css can do. Html and css enable the text content to flow around images, and resizing a window will make the text reflow to accommodate the different size. Flash can't do that, it doesn't even use standard scroll-bars.

Don't get me wrong, Flash can be great for highly interactive elements like games, but saying that most sites are unusable without Flash is simply not true. Try it, disable Flash and start surfing something outside YouTube and Flash games sites, your experience will go unchanged, except maybe for a few less annoying Flash ads.

Flash video is the most prevalent video out there. It's infinitely more versatile than QT. It can be embedded in animations, have other anims embedded in it, etc. So if you have a real browser, there's no need for a special youtube function. You have YouTube itself.

So, explain to me, why didn't Apple put a Flash player in the AppleTV and be done with it? Why would YouTube/Google waste time and money re-encoding everything to .h264? Putting Flash on the AppleTV would be trivial, it wouldn't even need to be re-compiled. Putting it on the iPhone isn't as simple, especially since it badly needs to be optimized on the Mac platform, even more-so for a limited cpu like the iPhone's.

If we didn't know about the YouTube on AppleTV announcement, your argument of "So if you have a real browser, there's no need for a special youtube function. You have YouTube itself." would be valid. But since we know that content will be available in higher quality, higher resolution .h264 format, Apple would be stupid not to integrate it on the iPhone, and that even if Flash support will probably be eventually added.

 

[dejo]

It's The Small Details That Make Me Smile

Did anyone else notice in the "Calamari" ad that when the pins are dropped onto the map, they make small holes and then bounce back up slightly? A subtle effect but nice nonetheless.