iPod Touch: 'Mainstream Wi-Fi Mobile Platform'

[B. Hunter]

Um, get away from your closed circle then.
Apple is beating the pants off of everyone in customer satisfaction surveys.
My experience is that the only places you see significant Apple bashing is ON these boards, ironically.

Yep.
Apple does not need to be defended. People bash them because they feel threatened using their inferior products anyway.

I switched almost eight years ago from the misery of Microsoft.
Have not looked back.

 

[Stella]

I've got a smartphone( Symbian ) thats open ( i.e., free to develop ) and WIFI - is that riddled with viruses? Nope.

Are there crap applications - sure - but I only install the ones I want to: If they are crap quality - then I'll uninstall ASAP.

I think your being too dramatic. Its really not as bad as you are making out. If you only want applications that you think are quality then you have the power only to install these. No other application is going to loaded onto your device magically. You have the power to choose! ;-)

Is OSX loaded with viruses - but yet open to 3rd party development? No to virus and still freely open to 3rd party devs - so there is no reason why the Touch or iPhone should be any different.

To answer your last question: Yes. Why? because it means developers have to get their applications certified ( verified by human ) and that won't be free. That will result in stifling the 3rd party development.

The security model in the OS should protect against dodgy applications. Look at Symbian 9.x security model - it requires applications to be signed ( can be self signed - to satisfy the freeware lot / small developers) - but the level of API an application can access is determined by the certificate signing. In fact, Apple have looked into this type of model.

The 'free market' of the user base will decide which applications succeed or fail. If an app is poor quality / buggy - it will fail.

Not exactly...
You want an internet communicable device to be opened up to haphazard development by god-knows-who for god-knows-what reason, essentially turning it into the disease ridden swamp known as Windows.

You are right in that I'm underwhelmed by the 'miracle of openness' that has produced an unusable (and apparently unfixable) email protocol and the viral swamp we have to endure on other systems.

I turn the question around and ask you... why are you so angered by a gatekeeper system that checks that applications observe standards for stability and lack of malware?

 

[eastcoastsurfer]

Not exactly...
You want an internet communicable device to be opened up to haphazard development by god-knows-who for god-knows-what reason, essentially turning it into the disease ridden swamp known as Windows.

Apple doesn't verify every piece of software I put on my mac, which happens to be an internet device. Why would they need to do it on any another device?

You are right in that I'm underwhelmed by the 'miracle of openness' that has produced an unusable (and apparently unfixable) email protocol and the viral swamp we have to endure on other systems.

It's already been shown that without open source there would be no OSX today. And the viral swamp you talk about is centered around a closed source OS called Windows. The more eyes you get on code the more likely you are to find bugs. If you truly want secure, bug free code you want it as open as possible.

I turn the question around and ask you... why are you so angered by a gatekeeper system that checks that applications observe standards for stability and lack of malware?

Who sets the standards? Who is going to verify the standards? Will it cost money? What if I want to throw together a utility one weekend and put it on my website to help others? Uh oh, not Apple approved...does that mean I can't even put it on my own device? You want to give Apple the say so on what software you're allowed to put on a device that you paid for and own?

 

[TedB]

Well breaking away from all of the fighting.... anyone else think due to this new "Mainstream Wi-Fi Mobile Platform", that apple is going to be releasing a bunch of apple made apps along with the SDK at the end of Febuary? After thinking about it, apple really made both the iPhone and the iPod touch very neutral devices in their current basic format. I know a few people that hated when the itunes wi-fi store icon when it was first put on the springboard, because they said they would never use it. By not giving us the advanced options of MMS, iChat and others, they have kept this device very friendly for all users.

Now that the SDK is going to allow options for people, I bet apple will be releasing iChat, video recording, and more soon, since we will now be able to customize the device to our liking.

For apple to say that the touch is going to be the "Mainstream Wi-Fi Mobile Platform", they are going to have to make some major moves to back it all up.

 

[zoltamatron]

I would agree with you, if it weren't for the fact that that the itouch in some ways has less features than the iphone. Would it not have been a better idea for the itouch to have bluetooth from the start? So you can use a nice set of bt-phone(and even use it for phone calls once a full version of skype is released). Or add a 3mpx camera so you can take pictures, upload it to flicker or take video do a quick edit so you can upload it to youtube. I still think Apple is crippling the itouch so they can still sell an iphone.

Yeah, I'm not sure why they took away all those things from it....perhaps to get ATT off their back? ATT did get an exclusive contract for the iPhone and they may have been upset to see a device come out that was almost the same (sans phone) which anyone could get and not have to pay them for service. I'm hoping that now that the iPhone is actually out and lots of people have it, that Apple will have a little more power in the relationship to do what they want. ATT can't back out now, and even if they did, I'm sure there are plenty of other companies that would take the iPhone into their lineup...

 

[quigleybc]

I can't see the point of the Touch. Why not buy an iPhone? It saves having to carry a separate phone as well as an iPod.

Or am I missing something? Is there something the Touch can do that the iPhone can't?

because there are people that live in countries with no iPhones.....

like me...

and i won't buy a hacked one...

 

[darkblu]

ipod touch second-wave adopter here; i have zero interest in yet another ipod, but i have all the interest in the world in a potent mobile platform.

a little background: i've been actively searching for 'the right' mobile (read: pocket) platform since there were mobiles to speak of.

palmos - i was there (the heydays with sony clie and tungsten) - plenty of 3rd party support, but the platform itself was rather poor - the os was notably dated, and this did not miraculously change overnight with palmos5, despite all the supposed beos tech in it.

symbian - again, notable 3rd party support, but the underlying platform felt amateurish (lots of holes in the APIs, major overhauls with each new version, just so things would repeat come next cycle)

windows CE (when it was called that) - the typical ms 1st attempt at anything - 'we don't get **** about the problem, but we'll throw our version at it anyway, and we will persist till it sticks'. zero-to-little consumer interest.

windows mobile (2nd time around) - again, in the ms-trademarked manner, after a myriad of fumbles ms start to get the idea of what they're trying to achieve here, which is that people do not want a desktop crammed on a tiny screen. yet ms still fail to grasp some of the fundamentals in the mobile sector - like the one about power efficiency (ie. work/watt) - WM devices as a rule hold the inefficient crown - it takes extra-powerful hw to satisfy the needs of the os + flagship apps suits (mobile office - really?), and the extra-powerful battery packs in their turn do not alleviate the price tag. result - no such thing as a good affordable/entry level WM device. if it's any good (read: good performance and battery life) it costs an arm and a leg.

various mobile linux platforms - the base suit of apps i.e. usually the bundled ones, are fine, on most of these platforms (e.g. sony mylo) but anything from there is more hacker-ish than a well-devised effort at true 3rd party support. the platforms usually end up as hacker's toys or never outgrow they original limited purpose (most often media players).

sony psp (running homebrew) - the platform that could have been, neutered by grandeur media reign ambitions (for those who don't know, it's sony pictures, not sony computer entertainment, who are in control of the platform) - killer hw, sans the UMD (for which we can thank sony pictures - you guys rock). also lack of touch interface (imagine psp sans UMD, but with touch). 3rd parties only in the form of games, mobile apps most amateurish (homebrew), with the rare gem exceptions (e.g. bookr puts to shame lots of commercial apps). again, no true universal mobile platform future beyond the homebrew community.

ds (mostly running homebrew but also some official apps) - well, it's a kick-ass gaming device, but for a true mobile platform it lacks too much - like a sound os (coding to the metal may be ok for a game console, is not for a common mobile platform), inadequate screen real estate and cpu power (opera ds suffers from that). basically, hardly any chance beyond the hackers/hobbyist crowd.

enter iphone/ipod touch - as with most things apple do, it really shows somebody did put a lot of thought into these devices. and i'd have never suspected that, but osx feels darn freaking right in my palm - the operating system is seamless - all the user sees are slick applications, proper GUIs making use of the multi-touch (where have you been all this time?), and nearly flowless features. best of all, the company behind it is sane - they know what they have on their hands, see the potential and have a perspective on the future, ergo the official SDK support to come soon.

frankly, february cannot come soon enough for me.

 

[i.maverick]

Then its time to update the sucker. Add a camera. Bump the flashdrive to at least 30gigs.

THEN....and only then will it truly live up to the mainstream mobile wifi platform moniker.

It's great now, don't get me wrong. But it's time to unleash the hounds and make it even BETTER.

mmm...m all for improvements..but consider this...the 64GB option for the Air costs a grand...so a 32GB thingy should be somewhere around $500 rite..so won't that be absurd..??!!

 

[Sweetbike40]

because there are people that live in countries with no iPhones.....

like me...

and i won't buy a hacked one...

What's the point of the Touch???? Just because there is an iPhone doesn't mean the iPod Touch is useless.

1. iPod has a version that has twice the memory.
2. you don't have to pay a monthly fee for service
3. you don't have to drain your phone while using it as a music player
( i've personally been around people whose iPhone battery died and they couldn't make a call)
4. I'd hate to have a $400 iPhone with me at lets say an amusement park, a club, a concert, etc.... situtions where it would be easy to lose it. I'd rather lose a free phone (whose battery seems to last forever)

 

[AidenShaw]

mmm...m all for improvements..but consider this...the 64GB option for the Air costs a grand...so a 32GB thingy should be somewhere around $500 rite..so won't that be absurd..??!!

32 GB USB thumb drives are about $200, 16 GB as cheap as about $60, 8GB as cheap as $37. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2013240522+1309429390&name=32GB)

Apple's wholesale price would obviously be less.

The MBA uses a flash PATA disk - the chips are inside a standard form factor PATA disk drive, and connect to the PATA controller on the southbridge. This increases the cost over the Iphone, where the flash chips could be soldered to the board and accessed without a PATA controller.

By the way, 32 GB solid state disks are as cheap as $200 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2013240636+1421430847&name=32GB). The larger disks cost more per GB than the smaller ones, since they need higher density flash chips (more expensive to buy) and/or more of them (more expensive to build).

 

[bloodycape]

Actually darkblu windows ce is still around and is the basis of all thing windows mobile. Current WM is based of CE5 the next version WM 7 will be CE6 based. So it is not really a second try. Not to mention that CE is the basis and still being used in many popular media players in Korea and Japan. Windows CE never really came on a device with a screen smaller than like 4in(media players don't count as there a few media players running CE that is smaller than 4in screen in size, but generally running a custom interface).

Last I checked newegg was selling 32gb cf cards for like $175usd.

 

[darkblu]

Actually darkblu windows ce is still around and is the basis of all thing windows mobile.

sorry, apprently i did not make myself clear - i referred to winCE as the timeframe when consumer mobile platforms were openly advertised as featurig 'winCE', there was no such a thing as 'windows mobile' then. but yes, i am aware that WM as a user platform is entirely built on winCE current.

also, by second try i was referring to the whole user experience paradigm - WM is seriously trying to be smart and differentiate across 'more mobile' and 'less mobile' plartforms, and actually succeeding on hitting the target envelope on some occasions. that versus the time when the user mobile experience from ms was the invariable 'a desktop on a poststamp' (i won't be arguing about inches here - if i can cram it in my pocket it's 'mobile' for me) and which btw, is still reigning on WM classic & WM premium.

Not to mention that CE is the basis and still being used in many popular media players in Korea and Japan. Windows CE never really came on a device with a screen smaller than like 4in (media players don't count as there a few media players running CE that is smaller than 4in screen in size, but generally running a custom interface).

well, a media player is not exactly a consumer mobile platform in the sense of the word i used in my post. of course, you can argue that neither are the ds or the psp, but i brought those up more for their wasted potential than anythig else. now, if you consider any of those winCE media players to be showing some true full-fledged mobile platform potential, then please mention so. otherwise they're just appliances.

 

[bloodycape]

Well how do you define mobile? Many of these devices you can put in your pocket, have wifi and bluetooth. Then again there are one or two device that have full qwerty keyboard, and can fit in a standard size pocket. Either running linux of some sort(qtopia mainly or windows ce).

 

[darkblu]

Well how do you define mobile? Many of these devices you can put in your pocket, have wifi and bluetooth. Then again there are one or two device that have full qwerty keyboard, and can fit in a standard size pocket. Either running linux of some sort(qtopia mainly or windows ce).

pocket-sized, some sort of network connectivity (does not have to be necessarily wi-fi), open for 3rd party applications.

 

[bloodycape]

Well then anything from Cowon as most of their devices have DAB/DMB support, and their flagship device has wifi, bluetooth and DAB/DMB. Then there is istation which make devices with WinCE or linux, has dab/dmb, and or wifi. We got Archos which has wifi. Then there is UPOP a 4.8in device that looks like the Tmobile sidekick, runs CE, has wifi, DMB, and up to 60gb of space with SDHC support. I could go on.

 

[darkblu]

Well then anything from Cowon as most of their devices have DAB/DMB support, and their flagship device has wifi, bluetooth and DAB/DMB. Then there is istation which make devices with WinCE or linux, has dab/dmb, and or wifi. We got Archos which has wifi. Then there is UPOP a 4.8in device that looks like the Tmobile sidekick, runs CE, has wifi, DMB, and up to 60gb of space with SDHC support. I could go on.

sorry, i'm totally unfamiliar with that - does dab/dmb allow applications download of some kind?

 

[jouster]

Who sets the standards?

Apple, presumably.

Who is going to verify the standards?

Apple, presumably.

Will it cost money?

No one knows....

What if I want to throw together a utility one weekend and put it on my website to help others? Uh oh, not Apple approved...does that mean I can't even put it on my own device?

It might well do.

You want to give Apple the say so on what software you're allowed to put on a device that you paid for and own?

That is the case with the iPhone and iPod Touch right now. What would be the difference?