Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iPhone Analysis and Palm Perspective

matticus008 said:
...and since the battery seems to be integrated, the upshot to that is that it can be substantially larger than a removable one.
Click to expand...

And that is why you compare the weights of the devices: a certain mass of LiIon-battery does have a certain capacity (more or less). No way around it. The weights thus show that they can't have stuffed a very large battery inside the iPhone. And battery efficiency is depending on chemistry: Motorola, Nokia and SonyEricsson have the same types. But they differ in power management in the electronics.

Otherwise I agree: we will have to wait and see.
 
whatever said:
Modems? Is this 2007 or 1980? Using a traditional modem (tethering) is a thing of the past. Who does that? Between WiFi in McDonalds to Broadband cards, why would I want to kill my Cell phones battery and lug around an unnecceary cable?

As far as the Bluetooth syncing goes. That means a lot of different things to different people. Syncing iTunes, I doubt it, because the content is too large. But syncing files, maybe.

Who said there are no 3rd party apps? For all we know there will be an iPhone store as a part of iTunes in June, filled with 3rd party apps.
Click to expand...

Ahem.

In the past three days, I spent 4+ hours sitting in airports, (LAX and SFO) with NO public WiFi capability. You want WiFi?.. you have to pay TMobile $20/day. A business-class phone needs to be able to be used as a modem to access wireless services with your laptop. (Or you can buy a card for that, but that's a separate data charge for that).

Did Jobs announce that 3rd party developers were welcomed?... not yet.

He did say no wireless synching. That sucks. Having to dock to charge, and to just update your contacts bites.
 
jettredmont said:
First off, of COURSE "five hours of A, B, or C" means that you can do any ONE of those for five hours (or a combination adding up to five hours).

Second, "I bet most users will have Wifi on and cellphone on". Umm, yeah, probably, but the cellphone will be in standby, which probably has about the battery life of the Treo in standby, which is around 300 hours (give or take).

Third, "It is easy to manipulate battery life figures - are you testing with a strong cellular signal, or a weak signal? Are these real world, or lab tests?" Of course it is. That's why the Treo's claimed 5 hours of talk time is really more like 2 hours of talk + goof around in WM5 time. All cell phone rated times are in ideal, strong cell tower situations. I expect Apples were, too (I mean, there is no "typical" situation for cell phones, and talk time can go from five hours with a strong tower to about thirty minutes on the fringe outskirts of a tower's range).

So, I trust Apple's "5 hours" estimate just as much as I trust Palms (and Moto's, and Nokia's and Sanyo's, etc). Which is: I know 5 hours is about 2 hours of solid talk/usage time. That's what I get on my Treo, and that ratio is what I got on my LG phone before it. It's not a matter of the tests being rigged: it's a matter of the only common comparison that anyone can trust is "idealized conditions", and everyone (for the most part) degrades from that at the same rate.
Click to expand...

Good score.

I have a Tungsten. Battery lasts for ages. Do I want to use it no, only when I absolutely have to and even then very briefly. Reason why my battery lasts for ages.

I have a Sony K750i mobile/cell phone. Battery lasts for ages. Do I want to use it, no only when I have to bloody use it. Until Tuesday it was one of the best phones out there but even then listening to music is crap, calling people is unpleasureable because the damn joystick doesn't always scroll down my address book. I have to hold the relevant key to bring up a list of people I might want to call, that buttons screwed as well. Hey the flaming screen freezes not to mention loss of resolution. So it stays on stand by hence my battery lasts for ages.

Apple Phone. Yes I would flaming well use it to the hilt. I have an ipod cable I can connect to a usb/firwire port to charge it, I could charge it in my car, hey I can charge the thing (possibly, won't know until I get it) on my portable charger.

Am I concerned about battery life. Hell no, at least I'll use it and feel happy using it.

No more upgrading my phone looking for that elusive all in one package in a cool design and UI/OS. Haha, its finely alive, its alive (even if it is for a couple of hours!).
 
Phew! I just spent the last day trying to sync a treo 650 with address book and ical. Had to buy 3rd party software "Missing Sync" to pull it off & even then there were all kinds of hoops to jump through.

Bottom line - USABILITY! Current smartphones for the average user are about as far away from usability as imaginable. Not totally the problem of the manufactures or the carriers but rather a lack of coherence between the two and a lack focus on the total user experience.

Apple IS the only company with the background, technology and vision to deliver on the total experience. Sure others will excel in niche and more technical applications but Apple is poised to smoke em all in the marketplace at large.
 
wildmac said:
Totally. They need a lot more features/solutions to convince the business crowd, who are the major buyers of Treos. etc.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I don't personally use a smartphone, but you'd have to pry my wife's Treo out of her cold, dead hand. I've tried to convince her that there are better solutions, these days, but she doesn't care. The Treo does everything that she wants it to do, and she knows how to use it. Also, contrary to what others have posted in this thread, it's reliable. She's been using the same one for the past three years.

It does not matter how cool and iPhone is, or a Q or Blackjack for that matter. A lot of people don't have the time or inclination to learn a new device/system.

This is all without even mentioning the fact that Apple's never built a phone, and Apple's Rev A hardware is traditionally problematic. People who use these smartphones rely on them like no other device. If my wife's Treo broke, it would be a catastrophic event. She keeps her whole life on that damn thing.

All this being said, I do think the iPhone will be a hit with the younger folks, and a large portion of the Mac crowd. I just don't think it will be a hit of iPod proportions. Personally, I have a 5G iPod. I have a phone. I have a Macbook. I don't need a six hundred dollar mac/ipod/cellphone combo.
 
KindredMAC said:
My prediction....

The iPhone will go the way of the G4 Cube.

Check back here 1 year after it finally makes market and we will see if I am right.
Click to expand...

Hey, MacRumors developers.... what we need (I think) is a feature to let us make predictions and lock them against our name. It'd be GREAT to look at someone's previous predictions and accuracy :)
 
More speculation

One thing just hit me: There seems to be no on/off-button? The top button is "wake", and presumably the mobile phone part is still running even when "sleeping" so that calls can be recieved. I really hope that there is an easy way to shut the device completely down, and in addition to that, a "flight mode" with everything running except the mobile phone/WiFi/BT. Otherwise you will not be able to bring it on an airplane...
But I am fairly confident that this will be solved in the final phone. You will still have to convince the stewardess that the mobile phone is really off when playing with it...
(Does anybody know if the sound on/off button on the side has tactile feedback on the position?)
 
I agree that apple is way better at addressing the consumer user experience than the business user's. However, if they would just pour more energy into the business arena, they are so poised to capture tons of new business users - because there are practically zero "round trip" friendly business solutions out there.

Apple spend some time improving .Mac. Let business user host .coms there with large capacity IMAP mail services. When they are on the road, let them sync their desktop contacts and calendars with their phones' - just like you support with laptops. You can keep the whole package geared for mac business users (forget PCs let them continue to struggle with the hodge podge)

After all business users are not different from consumer users - they just want to get it done, have it be seamless and even fun too!
 
Digitalclips said:
makes me wonder though ... which orientation the screen would think it was in when places flat on its back? Maybe there is a manual selection for that too?
Click to expand...
I imagine that as you place it on a table, it'd keep the last setting. Of course, if you rotate it 90' to show the person next to you a nice pic, you don't want the picture to reorient itself towards you again. Interesting question you have there!

I also wonder what happens if you keep rotating it... ie does it reorient when it's upside down too?
 
Ljot said:
If, and only if, Apple makes it open for 3rd party developers. As it was presented, there is a lot of functionality from my Palm that is missing (ebook reader, MS office doc. support, pdf reader, sync with MS Office, games etc.)
Click to expand...
jjthomps said:
I doubt palm is dead, but really..... 3rd party apps continue to bloat my Treo 700p.

How many times have you had a PDF that wouldn't load on your Palm? How long does it take? Wouldn't it be easier just to open up a laptop and look at it. I know it would be for me.
Click to expand...

You know, I don't understand why anyone would want a PDF reader on the iPhone--the Adobe PDF readers are pretty clunky on Windows, and even OS X, slow as crap and a serious pain. but, recall that OS X natively supports PDF--as in, a lot of its graphics are rendered as pdf objects. Their pdf "reader" Preview is fast as all hell. I would be very, very, very surprised if you couldn't open an e-mail with an attached pdf and either view it RIGHT IN THE E-MAIL like in OS X Mail, at snappy-as-jpg speeds. Steve is a nutcase when it comes to email, he's been into making e-mails look smooth and perfect since frickin' NeXT.

I think there are going to be a number of features on the iPhone that haven't been touted yet. Look at the keynote, it was an hour and a half almost, just on that phone. He doesn't have time to talk about MS Office document support, PDF support, etc. Talking that kind of thing up is for a phone that's so POS that that's the best thing about it, or at best, a phone that's been around so long that it's part of a new feature addition suite.

moreover, i can't help but wonder if it will support custom Quicktime codecs... at least eventually. That will be badass. However, I'm going to go ahead and guess that it's probably in the iPhone's interest in terms of success as a product for them to restrict who can develop on the platform, the way they have for the iPod. At the same time, it's OS X-based, and it will garner a following that will make the Newton seem like the least popular PDA ever, so I would expect that someone will figure out how to hack stuff onto it...
 
clevin said:
this one looks good
http://www.palm.com/us/products/mobilemanagers/lifedrive/blazer.epl
$399
Click to expand...

The LifeDrive is one of the worst products that Palm has launched. It is clunky, and it also is becoming even less supported. It was Palm's last attempt at making a non-Treo Palm, and it failed to catch on. Now Palm is putting their llast remaining support into the Treo product line.

Also note that the LifeDrive has a mechanical hard drive in it, not flash. You're better off with a Treo and a 4GB SDHC (the only thing the LifeDrive has going for it is a bigger screen, but even there, a Tungsten X and a large SDHC card or something would be better).

Also, Blazer is a really terrible and slow web browser. But options are limited on the Palm platform (there is Opera Mini for the Palm OS now, but it is really buggy, and crashes my Treo 650 constantly).

Seriously, if you're going to get any kind of Palm, you might as well get a Treo, as it's the only product line Palm is even showing some kind of support for (even though the Palm OS itself is still a mess and no longer being developed beyond whatever hacks they cram into it).

Media playback is pretty terrible too; pTunes is ok, but doesn't have much on the music playing capabilities demonstrated in the iPhone. And for media viewing, you are basically limited to the Core Media Player, which doesn't perform very well on it.

But really, I would stay away from the LifeDrive. One of Palm's biggest failures as a device. The fact that they are still selling it for $399 is remarkable, and I think puts the $499 price of the 4GB iPhone in perspective.
 
Zadillo said:
The LifeDrive is one of the worst products that Palm has launched. It is clunky, and it also is becoming even less supported. It was Palm's last attempt at making a non-Treo Palm, and it failed to catch on. Now Palm is putting their llast remaining support into the Treo product line.

Also note that the LifeDrive has a mechanical hard drive in it, not flash. You're better off with a Treo and a 4GB SDHC (the only thing the LifeDrive has going for it is a bigger screen, but even there, a Tungsten X and a large SDHC card or something would be better).

Also, Blazer is a really terrible and slow web browser. But options are limited on the Palm platform (there is Opera Mini for the Palm OS now, but it is really buggy, and crashes my Treo 650 constantly).

Seriously, if you're going to get any kind of Palm, you might as well get a Treo, as it's the only product line Palm is even showing some kind of support for (even though the Palm OS itself is still a mess and no longer being developed beyond whatever hacks they cram into it).

Media playback is pretty terrible too; pTunes is ok, but doesn't have much on the music playing capabilities demonstrated in the iPhone. And for media viewing, you are basically limited to the Core Media Player, which doesn't perform very well on it.

But really, I would stay away from the LifeDrive. One of Palm's biggest failures as a device. The fact that they are still selling it for $399 is remarkable, and I think puts the $499 price of the 4GB iPhone in perspective.
Click to expand...

oh, how about palm tx?
these are only products of palm with large screen and Wi-Fi
 
Ljot said:
And that is why you compare the weights of the devices:
Click to expand...
If by 'devices' you mean 'batteries' then I agree, with a few caveats. It's an illogical jump to draw any conclusion from the total weight of a device. My PowerBook weighs 5.7 pounds, but the battery life is far better than my 8.2 pound Dell Latitude.

This, of course, is not to mention the fact that the battery formulation is unknown. It could be Li-polymer, it could be Li-ion, it could use substantially lightweight cell packaging (which accounts for a not insignificant percentage of total mass). If we had more details, we could make a guess with a better foundation.

Comparing weights is a decent guess for normal cell phones, since you can compare dozens that weigh roughly the same, but once you start getting into smartphone-class devices, it is no longer reliable. Some have sliding keyboards, some have built-in keyboards, some have no keyboards, some have bigger screens, some have metal cases, some have a built-in stylus, etc. 5 grams here and 10 grams there makes a big difference in something this small.
 
How To Enter A Market 101

I remember reading shortly after ZUNE came on the scene, that some MS rep had said (paraphrase): "We're looking at the Zune as a long-term product. We probably will catch up in 5-10 years and grow features along the way".

I was shocked by this attitude. Why enter the market if you'd have something remotely as good as the competition. They even came in at the same price... and STILL with much less on the complete experience.

Apple decided to enter the phone market and I thought they were crazy as there are some sophicated things out there. But they decided to blow everyone away and enter on top with a superior product. It might not have EVERY SINGLE thing that EVERY SINGLE phone has, but what it does (and it does a lot), it does slicker and cooler than anything I've seen.

People complain about the price, but the iPod was first perceived as too expensive. It was only $100 less than the iPhone 4GB model. 1GB less and $100 more... but to compare the 2 is like night and day. What a difference 5 years makes. You'll also recall that Apple got cheaper and cheaper with the iPod as they continued to make make better and with larger capacity. I wouldn't doubt if Steve knows the specs and details on the next 5 iPhones. Some of the things you feel are lacking will most likely make it in. Why blow your wad all in one place, my dad used to say? The phone will simply get better and cheaper with time, just as the iPod has.

Lastly, the name... I noticed that iPhone was curiously absent on the phone. I'm sure this was done on purpose and I doubt if Apple will ever put the name on it, regardless of how the Cisco suit turns out. The silver logo on the back just says it all. Nothing else is needed.

All-in-all, I think Apple has shown MS (and the world) how to be a beginner and enter a new market. Unless you have VERY deep pockets (and MS does), you just don't enter a market and say "we'll be competitve in 5-10 years". how lame.
 
matticus008 said:
If by 'devices' you mean 'batteries' then I agree, with a few caveats. It's an illogical jump to draw any conclusion from the total weight of a device. My PowerBook weighs 5.7 pounds, but the battery life is far better than my 8.2 pound Dell Latitude.
Click to expand...

My last two comments about this:

1) In the time calculations I am not using the battery weight at all.

2) And I only use the weight to argue that the iPhone probably does not have a very much larger battery than comparable devices. Furthermore: If it had a very large battery, wouldn't they get a better talk-time than 5 hours then, considering that the screen is turned off when in phone position?

(I will not go inte the deeper details of reverse engineering: it would be too hard to remember what I can publicly state etc.)
 
miketcool said:
Are you kidding?
Apple created this market, Palm followed suit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton

mp2100.jpg
Click to expand...

Good point.... The Newton was way ahead of it's time. The keynote address was impressive. It's exiting, but I won't ditch my treo too soon, it's most compatible for work
 
Can anyone confirm if there's a search function in Contacts?, all i've seen so far is scrolling. No offence but someone with 500 contacts cant be scrolling through the entire book.

Also, any voice dialling/recording??
 
Ljot said:
One thing just hit me: There seems to be no on/off-button? The top button is "wake", and presumably the mobile phone part is still running even when "sleeping" so that calls can be recieved. I really hope that there is an easy way to shut the device completely down...
Click to expand...

Well, the iPod doesn't have an on/off button either. It seems logical that you would hold the wake button down for 5 seconds or so to shut it off.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back