For one, if the problems are software-related, then why have the engineers been shipped to Taipei?
[...]
The 50 engineers form a circle around the foreman and start singing Kumbaya. After several days and nights of non-stop singing the iPhone pokes its head out [..]
What do you think the next gen iPod may be based on? Humm just possibly the same OS X that is going into the iPhone.* No new iPod revisions - why? The iPhone.
50 Mac OS engineers burst into a Taipei factory and the foreman of the factory says, Wow, I appreciate that so many of you showed, but you wont be able to fix the iPhone in time, because the problem makes no sense at all it wont accept Chinese songs.
The lead Mac OS engineer exclaims, It what?! I cant understand how it would know the difference between Chinese songs and other songs . . . well if we cant fix it by June then will ship it as is since not that many people in the US listen to Chinese songs anyway. The foreman responds OK, but we have another problem . . . eh . . . the iPhone is up my butt and it wont come out.
The lead engineer laughs Come on, now I know your joking. No its true, says the foreman I pack the iPhone up there when we are not working on it, you know Steves secrecy policies. The iPhone must have known you were coming, that you would force it to accept Chinese music, and thats why it wont come out.
After a long ponderous pause, the lead engineer concludes, This all makes sense, and I know how we can get it out. The 50 engineers form a circle around the foreman and start singing Kumbaya. After several days and nights of non-stop singing the iPhone pokes its head out and says I give up! I give up! Ill accept Chinese songs, just stop singing Kumbaya!...
Thank you for adding your boundless insight to this thread.
Yeah... Apple doesn't do design outside of Cupertino. Ever notice the products tend to almost always say "Designed by Apple in CUPERTINO, or CALIFORNIA." In cases where its done in other places, its merey because companies were acquired in those locations and as part of the acquisition, they didn't make the employee's move to Cupertino. If anything cutting edge is going on, rest assured its happening in Cupertino.
I *highly* doubt the OS Engineers (and thus iPhone engineers) are sweat shop programmers in Taipei, give me a break.
Exactly, this is cutting edge stuff, pushing the envelope, its grad students applying theory to make fact, its incredibly knowledgeable old school OS coders making magic happen. It's incredibly insulting for you to think that Apple hires monkeys to type out code, especially for a product like the iPhone. Give. Me. A. Break. You were kidding right?
And that would be released when? Christmas? I'm thinking MacWorld in January.
You know, it would need to be updated within 3-6 months after initial release, just like Motorola and Nokia do with their cell phones, in order to stay up to speed.