Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
The Origins and Development of the iPhone
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I could have gone into its non-aesthetic based flaws, but i chose not to seeing how a slew of other people have pointed that out. The point im making is that given THOSE flaws, steve jobs must have said something pretty convincing in order to get his iphone theory up and running. He could sell water to a whale if he had to.
As for its aesthetic, the iphone looks pretty miserable for an apple product (and apple products 98% of the time look pretty chic). If you look at the ipod and its evolution, and then throw the iphone/ipod touch to the mix....its disappointing, but thats besides the point because both products are pretty disappointing for having a lack of tactile.
That's exactly what my brother-in-law said about his old Treo. He is pro-PC/Windows but loves his iPhone.
Jeah! And I would also love to see Apple as a music record company, so all good bands could show middle finger to sony, universal, emi, o whatever they are and be happy with Apple !
And then Apple could sell good quality and all drm free music thru iTMS! Live long Apple! + I love soooo much to read articles of inside Apple or SJ thoughts...
All Jobs had to do was say, "look what I did to the mobile media player business."
As for aesthetics, your opinion is that it looks very un-Apple like. When I first saw it I thought, only Apple could have come up with that beauty.
Newbie you ARE new. What rock have you been hiding under this past year?5 year exclusivity for AT&T??
Pretty much what I thought.
I'm always amused and mildly irritated by posts that pick on the aesthetic value of something I find beautiful. There seems to be an unspoken contest on MacRumors between people who are vying to prove that they have the best taste of anyone, and so they attack the things that damn near everyone else finds to be remarkably elegant and beautiful. "The iPhone looks like ass!" "The new iMac looks like ass, with that damn chin! WTF?" "720p looks like ass!" etc.
Even more amusing than the contempt is the histrionics we occasionally see: "I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit looking at the iPod nano." "I am on the verge of tears over the new ACDs." "I am considering suicide as a viable alternative to working with this 3-D dock," etc.
Apple creates some of the most beautiful designs known to man -- my evidence for that claim is the massive number of people who write articles and blog posts and forum posts about how stunning the new designs are. If you are truly revolted by Apple's design, I suggest you take a thoughtful look around at the world in which we live and ****. If Apple's industrial design really upsets you more than, say, Buddhist monks getting slaughtered wholesale in Burma, all I can say is that my mom has an ashtray I made in Kindergarten that I'd like to beat you over the head with.
Why? It is their utter lack of fixed, inflexible interfaces that make them both so powerful and expandable. What other phone can claim a software update completely changes the interface? Want to add a button? Sorry, you can't, you've got a big keypad.
I don't get the big thing about tactile input anyway. I'm more than happy to sacrifice the "feel of clicky buttons" if it nets me a more fluid, intelligent user experience. That's exactly what the iPhone offers.
Can it be improved? Most certainly. There are some missing features and tweaks that could be done to the interfacebut that's exactly the point. The reason these interface issues are addressable is because there are a minimum of fixed buttons on the phone.
Yes, it is his opinion, but No--he is wrong. That is the thing about opinions--Some opinions are about something that can't fully be substantiated, like "this is ugly." However, "this looks like x made it" is an opinion that can most assuredly be evaluated as wrong or right. The iPhone is a hallmark Apple design, whether or not you like it, for all the reasons I previously enumerated and more.
The guy has a few points, but when it comes to design, he neither knows what he's talking about nor is willing to discuss it in a rational matter, resorting to things like "it's already been discussed" and various foundation-less assertions.
"Fail."
Edit:
That is one of the best things I have read in the last month! Thanks for the good laugh, man.
You have to look at it both ways.
As a media device, do I want a nice big screen and an adaptable, context sensitive UI. Or do I want a fixed UI and a small screen for the sake of having tactile keys?
Its a complete no brainer. Touch screen every single time.
As a media device, do I want a nice big screen and an adaptable, context sensitive UI. Or do I want a fixed UI and a small screen for the sake of having tactile keys?
Its a complete no brainer. Touch screen every single time.
The only truly legitimate exception I have read to that is the whole car thing. It's kind of frustrating to use the iPhone when you really shouldn't be looking at the screen for more than the occasional glance. the iPod is fairly easy to queue up a song in a car safely. the iPhone is a much more frustrating experience.
But, when you can look at the screen while operating it, it's a real winner. It beats the crap out of any design with a full qwerty keyboard--In that case, the darn things STILL require your full attention to type into, unless you have memorized all the button positions for a grid of over 100 keys placed in less than 4 square inches. Tactile feedback doesn't augment the experience very much when you are LOOKING at your fingers to begin with. now, a multitouch surface in front of a computer terminal would be awful if you were a touch typist. but a phone? your hand is in the same place as the screen. You know what you're touching, whether your finger is on a textured button or not.
YES! Not only does Apple need to recover the costs of developing the product, it needs to recover costs for all the products that they tried to develop but never made it into a commercial product. I have to wonder about all the products that we will probably never know about. That is the nature of a company that lives and dies on innovation.
This is what is important to me:
Jobs had reason to be confident, according to Wired, as Apple's hardware engineers had spent about a year working on touchscreen technology for a tablet PC and had convinced him that they could build a similar interface for a phone.
It sounds like that tablet does exist and that it uses multitouch interface.
The question is when is it coming out???????????
Jobs had reason to be confident, according to Wired, as Apple's hardware engineers had spent about a year working on touchscreen technology for a tablet PC and had convinced him that they could build a similar interface for a phone.
It sounds like that tablet does exist and that it uses multitouch interface.
The question is when is it coming out???????????
Does he even realize the mark up on furniture!? or cabinetry? Furniture is roughly 150% and cabinetry is an unbelievable 400%!!! Electronics have the lowest mark up of anything you can buy because it already costs the manufacturer a good deal to make.
We basically already knew that. Look at the patents they put in for it. That doesn't mean they'll come out with one at this year's MWSF. Sometime in the future, most likely though.
Even that's not a problem with a good head unit and dock connector. Let the remote do all the song changes. I love my Pioneer P4900iB.
Who knows. For all we know, it was something that Jobs considered, but decided that Multi Touch was better for a phone than a Tablet would be and axed the tablet. Until Apple makes specific intentions to take the business in a specific direction, we cannot say that an internal project is any indication than something that will ever make it to market.
Interesting read, especially about how Jobs didn't even care who the provider was and squeezed them for such a good deal.
I'd rather Apple stuck to electronics, regardless of how nice their furniture might be..
I'd rather Apple stuck to electronics, regardless of how nice their furniture might be..
J
jmadlena
Guest
I don't know if you have heard of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (actually, it is clear you have not). I am a fan of Jobs like any other self-respecting Apple-fan, but don't go putting down someone else to raise Steve up a notch (he stands well enough in his own right). Bill Gates (and Melinda, for that matter) are two of the most generous people I have ever heard of. Their organization is involved in countless regions of the world developing infrastructure, researching life-saving medicines, and doing many other projects. I suggest that you read up on the organization.
Hating Microsoft is no reason to bash Bill Gates. He has obviously done very well for the company and investors as well.
I agree. I may not like most of Microsoft's products but Mr. & Mrs. Gates are very generous and heartfelt people.
You're worrying over nothing. The iPhone requires a computer and there is no way around that. The cell industry will always provide a low-cost or no-cost alternative for those people without a computer or who just wants a phone that makes calls.
If you're afraid that the only phones that will be available will be awesome phones that do lots of things very well (like the iPhone) then you're just standing in the proverbial way of progress.
"Fleece" -- love that word, too. As this article clearly shows, Apple went over huge obstacles and braved through corporate bullshiz a mile high so that the iPhone would be a reality. True, $599 and $499 was not "cheap", but they weren't just offering people a phone. This thing does many things extremely well. I think you're forgetting it's "a phone, an ipod and a web communicator" to quote Steve Jobs. You buy a great phone or even a moderate one these days and you'll spend $300 without a contract. Then you buy an iPod (and who doesn't) and you've spent another $250-300 -- the iPhone puts all that technology into a SINGLE device. Somebody had to pay for $150M R&D and Marketing. The early adopters.
Also, after just a few months, Apple dropped the price to $399 for an 8GB model for those holiday shoppers, gave early adopters a $100 credit and we'll soon hear the numbers. Some people BOO-HOO'd and BAWLED, but Early Adopters, we always pay more. But we got the joy of being the only folks in the office with such a slick new device -- later we rewarded with $100 worth of Apple stuff.
They could've kept the price at $500-600 and still sold them all out, but they didn't. Any other company IN THE WORLD would've, but they dropped it by $200 and I think that says a lot about the company
It certainly doesn't say "FLEECE".
While I agree that the foundation is doing a lot of good things, I am not sure what that has to do with the previous comment (by someone else) about the way Bill comes across to a lot of people. Bill does not have much of a presense, however I would like to get in his will.
I'm glad to know that Apple US has better service. Unfortunately here in Germany there is no customer culture. We are expected to pay, get a kick behind and even thank them for it. Worse than all, T-Mobile Germany is very bad even for local standards. Almost evil.