Posted on 10/23/2017 9:56:10 PM PDT by Swordmaker
You are the one who keeps making meaningless comparisons. I made a meaningful comparison many years ago when I compared the features of my two year old smart phone with a friend’s iPhone soon after it was released. It would not do what I needed a smart phone to do at that time. That is the only kind of comparison that truly matters... will the device do what you need it to do.
Most importantly I needed a phone that gave me a high speed internet connection to tether to my laptop to at a reasonable price when I was at work and away from home. Everything else was actually secondary to that need.
The phone that I had also had far more other functions and features than the original iPhone did. A couple of examples... it would play a wide variety of both video and music files and gave me many choices of available programs. It worked with my Bluetooth GPS and a variety of moving map software was available.
The first iPhone had very limited music and video options and would not work with any GPS devices that I am aware of. 3rd party software for the first iPhone was all but non-existent. There were many thousands of programs and applications available for windows smart phones by the time the iPhone was first released.
The device I owned had plenty of processing power, ram, rom and storage for everything that I used it for. I used to joke that it was more powerful than the IBM Pentium laptop that I had been using for several years when I got the phone. And the specs were actually better... but it was a laptop and the phone was a phone.
When I was in school pursuing an engineering degree I had a work study job working in the computer lab. I helped students mostly with programming, Word Perfect 5.1, Lotus 123 release 2 with its associated macro language, and some other productivity programs on PCs. These were truly revolutionary programs that gave PC users nearly the same capabilities that previously were available only to businesses with very expensive computer systems and personnel. I also maintained the computers and the menu system we had set up in DOS.
The computers had 360K 5 1/4” floppy disc drives and 10 MB hard drives with CGA monitors. They ran at 8 MHZ and had 640 KB of RAM. We were using MSDOS; Windows did not exist at that time. But of course users could still accomplish more productive work with them than with any tiny phone that came along 20 years later.
Software was far more efficient when the hardware was much more limited. Your condescending quoting of specs is almost completely meaningless. It just does not matter... it is what you can accomplish with a tool that matters. The first iPhone was never meant to be a serious productivity tool. It was very limited and users had very few options outside of the applications that Apple included with it.
The first iPhones allowed one to take mediocre digital pictures that the phones of that time period were capable of. It allowed one to listen to the music and video formats that Apple allowed. It of course worked as a phone and could send and receive textual messages and had very limited internet capabilities on the road because of its lack of high speed cellular data.
There was nothing revolutionary about the first iPhone other than Apple’s successful Ad campaign and the number of consumers who wanted a cool toy with very limited potential. How much foresight does it really take to specify a slightly larger screen with a resolution that was higher than phones that came out two years earlier? How much foresight does it take to specify that it be narrower by leaving off a slide out keyboard? How much foresight does it take to specify that it have slightly better specs than the phones that came before it? And this hyping up its use of an input device that others thought of and developed first? It was not revolutionary... it did not even do as much as many other devices that came before it.
Because of its success it did have an effect on cell phone designers from that time period. Just like a successful clothing designer affects women’s fashion. Just like a successful car design affects other car designers.
Apple insisting that everyone else is copying Apple is a game that they have played from the beginning. It is called “projection”... accusing others of doing what you are doing. Look at the Samsung Gear Watch for one of the more recent examples. The Samsung Gear II watch that I own does basically everything that an Apple watch does only it came out years before. Maybe Samsung should be suing Apple for stealing its ideas.
Apple has always been an aggressive and litigious marketing company, not a true technology leader. They have sued the true innovators repeatedly. Apple has an army of lawyers who are even better at rewriting history than you are. They stick to the three C’s... and I am not talking about Compliance, Communication and Compassion. I am talking about “If you can’t convince them, confuse them; If you can’t confuse them, corrupt them”.
Please point us to the MULTITOUCH capacitance screen phones that existed prior to the iPhone. Point to ANY touch screen phone that did not require a stylus for input. You can’t. They did not exist. Ergo, that statement is false.
Apple has always been an aggressive and litigious marketing company, not a true technology leader. They have sued the true innovators repeatedly.
Please cite the lawsuits Apple has instigated. I listed them for you. . . But you imply that Apple is always suing "the true innovators." Prove it. Cite the cases. Show us your proof. Did Microsoft create the Graphical User Interface? Was not Apple’s code found in Microsoft’s Windows Video Player? Did not Apple WIN the Samsung suit? Where are the suits against the "true innovators" you claim Apple is always bringing? You can’t cite them because they don’t exist.
Apple has a reputation of licensing the IP, or buying the companies who produce the IP, it uses, unlike Microsoft and Google whose business model, especially early on, was to steal IP and wait for small developers to sue themselves into bankruptcy, at which point Microsoft would buy them at fire sale prices, while Google just ignored such things as IP patents and copyrights. . . not even bothering to file off the serial numbers (comments in code) in what they appropriated.
I’m done with this since you toss off evidenceless one liners like that last claim. I’m not going to spend my time arguing with an idiot who has such a tenuous grasp of history to claim such twaddle, or to claim both sides of an argument that YOUR SUPER POWERFUL Windows phone with 128 MB and a 416 MHz clock, could be more productive and powerful than a desktop computer, so long as YOU get to choose the reference computer, but claim that such devices are not good for productivity! Or further claim that Your 1 megapixel plastic lens phone camera, displaying just 64k colors on an old tech screen, somehow out-performs a 2 megapixel Zeiss made glass lens camera displaying 262,144 colors at twice the resolution on an entirely new tech screen with 179 degree field of view. Or, your assertion that the phone market did not change following Apple’s introduction of the iconic iPhone design, with all phones now essentially mimicking the iPhone’s look, feel, and operational concepts. Only rabidly blind fans of the competing followers—those who want history to be other than it is—are those who are refusing to see it for what it factually and in reality is.
Such claims are, on their face, delusional. I’m not going to cure your delusions, so I’m going to stop trying, because you refuse to see facts in front of your face, preferring your opinions and your delusional version of history. Fine. Live in fantasyland.
Apple is and always has been a company based on marketing not hard research. Multi-touch input devices were thought of and developed by others long before leadership at Apple thought that it might be a cool way to control a phone cell phone. It turned out that it was an idea that caught on the same way that game controllers with more buttons and two joystick like inputs became popular for video games. That was an evolution from controllers with one joystick and a couple of buttons. Multi-touch was an evolution from touch controllers which sensed just one input. Big whoop!!!
But I do applaud Apple for deciding to put a multi-touch controller on the first iPhone, it was an evolutionary development that they were able to convince consumers was worthwhile. It didn't turn an expensive toy with good specs but severely limited features into some type of super phone. It didn't add any new functionality of real importance; it was merely an evolutionary development. But it sold and sold well enough to convince other companies to put the same type of input on their phones.
The way you harp on it one would think it was divine inspiration. As I told you... on a laptop and in many other applications I find multi-touch input to be more of an annoyance than a help. But the market controls what is available in our society. So often steps forward have their associated annoyances.
I do not need to go into Apple's long history of litigation. It is a well known web of unsavory manipulation of our legal system that frankly makes me sick. It has become the butt of jokes the world over. You trying to minimize this well known component of the company's history and current operations is both sad and farcical. It undermines all of your other whimsical claims about divine inspiration from Apple.
Apple has been amply rewarded for the innovative ideas that they have made popular with their brand of marketing. They may still be a bit player in the development of new technology but they have become the most valuable company in the world. This is from clever marketing and the ruthless stifling of the competition through legal means. The number of lawsuits filed by their army of lawyers is impressive, but you and I are both aware that the number of lawsuits filed is not an accurate measure of legal manipulation or power. To think that it is... is so silly that it is really not possible to respond to in any appropriate manner. It is so unfortunate that our great legal system has turned into the leading way for unimaginably wealthy entities such as Apple to victimize true innovators. It is very, very sad. I do not know if you really believe some of the mischaracterizations you have made about Apple being some type of victim in this world or if it is just nonsense you throw out to confuse the issues the same way that Apple's lawyers do.
Swordmaker, your reliance on name calling and the venom in your responses in this discussion is somewhat humorous but I find it worrysome as well. Your level of discourse truly has fallen a great deal from what it once was. It makes me worry about you. I suspect that your are still suffering from health issues, and I truly will continue to keep you in my prayers. In the past I always have respected your opinion and learned a great deal from your about Apple products. I hope that you will continue to share your knowledge here as long as possible. Have good day my friend.
Actually, I said that even a twenty year old computer running DOS with a 10MB hard drive was a more productivity tool took than my tiny phone was in 2005. Anyone can verify that by re-reading the post just above.
“Or, your assertion that the phone market did not change following Apple’s introduction of the iconic iPhone design”
Actually I have said REPEATEDLY that the because the first iPhone was a commercial success that it was an influence on cell phone designers going forward. These are only two examples of misquotes from you. There were multiple other misquotes just in your last post, but you have done the same thing throughout this thread and in many others threads as well.
If you feel you are winning a debate then why do you feel that it is somehow necessary to mischaracterize what people have said. You have done this consistently and repeatedly? I assume that you are just trying to make things confusing for people who may be only reading the last post or two in a thread. It is a despicable Alinsky like misinformation tactic that reflects very, very poorly on your character. Why should we believe anything that you post when you essentially lie even about what has just been written by others just a few lines above? That is just crazy... there is no other way to put it.
It is along the same lines as the most valuable company in the world constantly claiming they are being victimized by others when in fact they are the ones repeatedly restyling, tweaking repackaging the ideas of others. Apple is not the company who came up with the idea of combing a cell phone, camera, micro-computer, and media player in one device. Apple is the one who copied the work of others in this instance. You think that adding a multitouch input device is a major development. That is also just crazy... there is no other way to put that either.
In 1970 Ford was the first domestic car manufacturer to sell a new car with radial tires as standard equipment. Radial tires have advantages over bias ply tires, mostly notably lessened rolling resistance and improved tread wear. To me this seems very analogous to a phone with a multitouch input device as compared to previous generation touch input devices.
Radial tires didn’t radically improve the characteristics of the Lincoln Continental Mark III. But these days all tires installed on new cars are radials. Essentially the only ones who still put bias plies on cars are vintage car collectors such as my wife and I.
Maybe Ford should have sued all the other domestic manufacturers for stealing “their” idea when they started copying Ford and putting radials on their new cars? Maybe Citroën should have sued Ford for stealing their idea?
I purchased my first drawing tablet that I connected to a desktop computer through a serial port to use with photo editing and other graphics design programs long before the first iPhone was released. And no, you generally do not need to use a stylus to use the touchscreen on earlier drawing tablets, phones or tablets. But a stylus takes better advantage of the greater precision most touch devices had before multitouch. These days professional drawing tablets that I am aware of are still all designed to use a stylus type device for greater precision.
it is not at all analogous. A multitouch screen that allows finger input is a huge shift in function. The user can now do far more than just point and select by tapping on the screen with a stylus for accuracy. The degree of redesign of software required to implement a multitouch is several orders of magnitude greater than a mere X grid detection. This shows how little you grasp the degrees of complexity involved between a single touch screen and a screen that can accept input from two or more simultaneous touches and distinguish what movement they are making and what to do about them.
Then to overlay them on a graphical screen and make it interactive? Raise it another order of magnitude in complexity.
Comparing that to a simple change in the way a radial tire relates to banded tires is just not on the same level of technology. . . and that is why YOU do not grasp the sea change it brought about in phones and user interfaces.
Claiming the multi-touch capacitance screen is analogous to radial tires improvement over regular tires is like claiming that movies are an improvement over still photos. . . after all, you semi-reason, they both convey images. so a full-length feature movie is just a slight improvement over a snapshot.p> My Renault R16 already had Radial Tires in 1967. . . but you cannot demonstrate any multitouch capacitance screened phones prior to the iPhone introduction in 2007. NONE. There was only one capacitance screened phone prior to the iPhone, the LG-Prada, which used the old single-touch, button to scroll protocols. It did not break any new ground in user interfacing. You keep claiming the iPhone did nothing new that had not already been done before, but you can't demonstrate the truth of your claims at all, merely pointing to something that was "sort of like, but not exactly, in a primitive fashion" of what the iPhone does. . . that is NOT proof of anything.
Ford couldn't sue anyone for Arthur W. Savage's 1915 radial tire invention, because they did not invent it. By 1970, radial Tires were in the public domain for anyone to use. Again, you are throwing your facturd ideas against the wall, hoping the general readers will believe your idiotic claims intended to smear Apple. Apple DID invent the multi-touch capacitance screen on mobile devices. They STILL hold the patents. So much for your idiotic analogies that don't hold water in debates about FACTS, not facturds.
I purchased my first drawing tablet that I connected to a desktop computer through a serial port to use with photo editing and other graphics design programs long before the first iPhone was released. And no, you generally do not need to use a stylus to use the touchscreen on earlier drawing tablets, phones or tablets. But a stylus takes better advantage of the greater precision most touch devices had before multitouch. These days professional drawing tablets that I am aware of are still all designed to use a stylus type device for greater precision.
So the Frick WHAT? I had one too. If you touched it in another place while you were touching it with your stylus, you confused the hell out of it, because it could not distinguish which was the correct signal to use. It was a SINGLE TOUCH resistive panel. Did it have a video screen behind it? Most likely not. Those were rare birds and very expensive and not very accurate at all because raster screen were too dependent on changes in voltage for positioning and over time, the screen display shrank while the sensor grids did not, requiring continual recalibration.
If you duplicated that drawing tablet and started selling a competing version, don't you think the maker of the drawing tablet would not have SUED YOU for patent infringement and rightly so? I recall several lawsuits on that very subject where the inventor of the drawing tablet sued makers of knockoffs. . . and won.
Wacom Patent Infringement Suit
Did that drawing table have a screen? No, it did not. Now even Wacom licenses their multi-touch screen technology from Apple. . . because Apple invented it.
I can point to NO invention in the history of technology that did not have some predecessor in technology or science that came before it. That is the essence of your arguments against Apple inventing anything. Using that argument, nobody ever invented anything because according to you, everything had something that preceded it. That is literally true.
Using that way of thinking, my Great, great Grandfather, Alexander Graham Bell, really did not invent the telephone. . . he innovated it out of numerous other technologies that already existed. Frankly, I am in agreement with numerous other scholars that think he was not the true inventor of the telephone but likely stole it. . . but the fact is that others had demonstrated transmission of sound prior to Bell. Edison did not invent the lightbulb, as there were even commercial versions of the electric light bulb selling before his, but HIS was the first practical one that really worked and kept working, in fact as much as 20 years prior to Edison. The Wright Brothers were not the first to fly a heavier than air powered aircraft, but they kept at it even though their designs were flawed. Everyone of these had technology that preceded their inventions. . . just as did the iPhone. . . but every one of them made a sea change in technology that affected everything in their industries. They were not just "Innovations" but actual "Inventions."
If you think there is a real "Invention" out there that was not preceded by other technology, please tell us what it was.
It is absolutely asounding to me that you continue your wild exaggeration that being able to sense more than one finger on a touchscreen regardless of whether or not it has a screen beneath it is a revolutionary idea. It is the next thing that any three year old might think of when trying to make an improvement to anything with a single anything. “Let’s add more and more and more.” What a concept! And compared to yours my tire analogy is brilliant on many different levels.
I am sure that the technical challenges perfecting other peoples ideas on this were almost as daunting as adding the extra joystick like input on game controllers. But the real question is how much functionality did this evolutionary development in touch input add to the original iPhone? In truth not very much for most users. Most were just happy that they could zoom in and out slightly easier on their crappy phone pictures than with they could without it. As opposed to gamers who would never be able to reach higher levels of game play slaying dragons or zombies on their Play Stations with just one joystick input.
And you will have to forgive the typos etc. on this post because I actually am entering it on a multi touch tablet screen. I am not sure who to thank for the priveledge. Apple for perfecting the first iPhone or that other company... (maybe you can tell us... starts with an S I think) who sold them the processor for the first iphone. Because together they made history!
I guess my sarcastic response in challenging you on your wanting your itty-bitty 6700 Windows phone to ever BE a productivity device and then you comparing it to the productivity of a DESKTOP device of YOUR choice seems to have escaped you because you had said:
"I used to joke that it was more powerful than the IBM Pentium laptop that I had been using for several years when I got the phone. And the specs were actually better... but it was a laptop and the phone was a phone."
I was pointing out the ridiculousness of you even bringing up the comparison of a micro screened minuscule phone with very low specs in comparison to a desktop or laptop computer. . . and you just missed it. Others picked up on it.
Actually I have said REPEATEDLY that the because the first iPhone was a commercial success that it was an influence on cell phone designers going forward.
No, fireman15, you have not. You've denied that, the couple times you mentioned it, you used it as a lead in to more negative comments. You've repeatedly claimed that other phones had those features first, denigrating that it was the iPhone that made that change. We've all seen you do it. You can't try and re-cast your claims now. Here are all your negative comments in this thread on this subject:
- Apple patented the meaningless fluff and then stole the actual technical achievements from other “smart phones” which came years before the I-phone. I guess we can credit the mental gymnastics of the formidable army of Apple lawyers for maneuvering this albatross through the American legal system.
- I applaud Apple for stealing so many good ideas from companies such as HTC, Samsung, and IBM and incorporating them into the first I-phone. But face it even phones with touch screens came out several years before the first I-phone. Nearly all technological devices become more capable and smaller or thinner as time goes by.
- I would dispute that the first i-phone had a revolutionary appearance, design or feature set. It was simply an evolution from previous devices that it “borrowed” its “features” from. . . These were all devices that Apple “borrowed” ideas from. And by the way... they basically all were rectangular with rounded corners. If common sense prevails, Samsung will eventually have the last laugh.
- And Apple did not invent multi-touch screens... what a joke. (Refuted with factual data from US Patent Office)
- Putting a capacitive touch screen as opposed to a resistive touch screen on a device with a phone included is not a revolutionary idea. It was simply evolution that someone or a corporation were working to get this combination to market. Claiming that this was some sort of stroke of genius is laughable.
- The I-phone’s huge marketing success obviously influenced the direction of cell phone designers going forward. But have you ever looked at the automobiles? My wife and I restore vintage automobiles... you can guess the time period that most vintage automobiles came from by glancing at their exterior appearance. It is the same with houses and clothes and of course cell phones. We started out with a car phone, then went to a bag phone, then a large cell phone, then smaller and smaller cell phones, flip phones, and then on to smart phones. And then the smart phones started becoming more powerful with screens that started getting larger, while at the same time getting thinner. That is called evolution of design and Apple was part of that evolution.
- There was nothing revolutionary about the first iPhone other than Apple’s successful Ad campaign and the number of consumers who wanted a cool toy with very limited potential. How much foresight does it really take to specify a slightly larger screen with a resolution that was higher than phones that came out two years earlier? How much foresight does it take to specify that it be narrower by leaving off a slide out keyboard? How much foresight does it take to specify that it have slightly better specs than the phones that came before it? And this hyping up its use of an input device that others thought of and developed first? It was not revolutionary... it did not even do as much as many other devices that came before it.
These are only two examples of misquotes from you.
This is more of your projection of what you have been doing all along. . . attributing to me, what you are doing. Nice try, but it won't fly. I'm done with sparring with you. . . I will not respond on this thread again, you are a waste of time.
Yeah right...
If anyone actually ever reads through this thread... which I doubt they can judge who the biggest Bull-sh@tter is for themselves. This theoretical reader's conclusion will probably be based more on confirmation bias than on yours or my artful pros. It will depend on whether or not they appreciate our country's legal system being manipulated by a corporation with almost unimaginable resources. Or more likely it will depend on how much they lover their current iPhone. So it doesn't really matter a great deal and you are right not to respond again.
I have forgotten what you have said your background was in previous threads... You are obviously knowledgeable about Apple products and history. From what you have written in this thread I suspect that you have little if any experience designing or even assembling electronic gadgets from components. You may have never even put together a PC from components. I am not sure whether or not you even repair your own hardware. I am not sure if you have ever even changed the oil on your own car, let alone replaced rod bearings or a head. I doubt that you have any engineering education or experience.
You remind me of the fire buffs who hung around fire stations that I sometimes worked at. They could spout off all sorts of facts and figures but almost none of them had ever gotten their faces or ears burned in a hot fire. None of them had ever tried to stop the bleeding on someone who had been shot or stabbed multiple times or revive a person whose heart had stopped. They never got a lung full of chlorine or ammonia on a hazmat call. In short they had a lot of superficial knowledge but they had never gotten their hands dirty. A lot of them were strongly opinionated despite their lack of any meaningful experience.
And that reminds me of you. You talk about the amount of research and engineering that went into this or that device... Your posts suggest to me that you do have a diverse background with real world experience and thus have a distorted perspective. You really cannot tell us based on any real world experience the amount of effort that went into the first iPhone as compared to other devices that came before or after, electronic or mechanical.
I will end this post with some quotes from an article written about the first iPhone not long after it was released.
“Will the iPhone fundamentally alter the structure of the wireless world as well?
Not yet. The iPhone’s style and user interface are pathbreaking, and (as the iPod proved) aesthetics do matter. But the iPhone is—so far—not a product that will turn any industry inside out. Seen as a phone, the iPhone is striking. Seen as a small computer, it's limited, and compromised by the existing business models of the wireless industry. Saying the iPhone is a pointless gadget is a bit too strong. But it isn't yet a revolutionary device.”
“Most obviously, the iPhone is locked, as is de rigueur in the wireless world. It will work only with one carrier, AT&T. Judged by the standards of a personal computer or electronics, that's odd: Imagine buying a Dell that worked only with Comcast Internet access or a VCR that worked only with NBC. Despite the fact that the iPhone costs $500 or so, it cannot yet be brought over to T-Mobile or Verizon or Sprint. AT&T sees this as a feature, not a bug, as every new iPhone customer must commit to a two-year, $1,400 to $2,400 contract.”
“But while the iPhone has Wi-Fi, it doesn't let you do one very obvious thing with its Wi-Fi connection: make phone calls. In an ideal world, you might want to use AT&T when on the road and have your phone switch automatically to Skype or Vonage when at home, since they're much cheaper and can have better voice quality.” (The PPC-6700 was able to make voip calls using the appropriate available software)
The iPhone’s Achilles’ heel is its Internet access when it's not near a Wi-Fi hot spot. The fact that the iPhone can use only AT&T's rather slow EDGE network is a weakness that affects the phone's most exciting capabilities (such as application development, below). As the New York Times’ David Pogue writes, “You almost ache for a dial-up modem.” Oddly enough, you can't even download music directly from iTunes. (PPC-6700 could download basically anything that would fit on its mini-sd card)
“The iPhone is also a closed platform. Unlike your Macintosh computer, which can run whatever software developers write for it, the iPhone will, in native mode, run only whatever Apple (and AT&T) approve of. While there are some technical and security reasons to do things this way, there's an ideological point here, too. The closed iPhone stands in contrast to the open-platform design that has been the bedrock of both the personal computer and Internet revolutions. By design, the iPhone embodies the opposite of what made the Apple II so successful.”
“But the problem is that you have to be online to use a Web application. Unless you're in an open Wi-Fi zone, that means running right into the limits of AT&T's slower-than-a-dialup-modem EDGE network. In addition, the phone won't support Java or Flash, which are both important components of many powerful Web apps.” (PPC-6700 could run both Java and flash apps with the appropriate and available software installed)
“We're left to wonder, then, why the iPhone plays by the rules. Isn't this Apple, the company of “Think Different”? You could argue that the iPhone proves that Apple is no longer a company interested in transforming industries. Once Big Brother's foe, it's now more like Little Brother, happy to sell cute little devices that are easy to use, make money, and spread false consciousness.”
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2007/06/iphony.html
So I repeat for the umpteenth time... when I compared the first iPhone with the phone that I had already owned for 2 years... it came up short. And this was not just 10 or 20 minutes at a phone store... this was a detailed evaluation with a phone lent to me by one of my closest friends. The first iPhone would not do what I needed a smart phone to do. So to me it was not revolutionary it wasn't even useful enough to consider purchasing. It was a commercial success and did have an influence on cell phone designs that followed. But it had very few of the capabilities that current generations of iPhones possess today.
Sorry typo:
Your posts suggest to me that you do NOT have a diverse background with real world experience and thus have a distorted perspective.
“The Apple iPhone has variable call quality and lacks some basic features found in many cell phones, including stereo Bluetooth support and 3G compatibility. Integrated memory is stingy for an iPod, and you have to sync the iPhone to manage music content.”
https://www.cnet.com/products/apple-iphone/review/
“Before we get to the in depth hands-on, here's the verdict I'd give any good friend: Wait to buy the iPhone.
“But as the honeymoon sets, I find myself left with a phone that could be more functional. “
“The real elephant in the room is the fact that I just spent $600 on my iPhone and it can't do some crucial functions that even $50 handsets can. I'm talking about MMS. Video recording. Custom ringtones. Mass storage. Fully functioning Bluetooth with stereo audio streaming. Voice dialing when you're using a car kit. Sending contact info to other people. Instant friggin’ messenging. Sending an SMS to more than one recipient at a time.”
“And while writers are covering these facts in a glancing manner, alongside the quirky QWERTY, lack of 3G, and weak email support, I feel like they are under emphasizing the flaws in light of the shock and awe of the phone's Wonders.” (Shocking! You mean I am not the only one who didn't appreciate the first iPhones on screen keyboard?)
https://gizmodo.com/276116/apple-iphone-review
“The bad part is that there are many features that are missing. 3G, MMS, A2DP, video recording, voice recording, voice dialing, and flash are just a shame to see missing on a phone this nice and this expensive. Call quality and signal strength has been an issue as well, and not just to us but the public too.”
https://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Apple-iPhone-Review_id1773
Apple spent a lot of money hyping the first iPhone so the most interesting part of many of the reviews are the comments from users:
“I agree that the first thing a phone should do is make calls - for that the iPhone absolutely sucks! Some states have laws against using a cell phone when driving but no mater what the law, everybody does it. And for that the iPhone is an accident going somewhere to happen - in a phrase, the reason it sucks is, NO TACTICAL FEEL. Over a highly sensitive touch screen, you have to navigate to the phone app, then navigate to the number somehow, then make the call - and along the way you better not inadvertantly touch the wrong part of the screen (which is nearly impossible) or you are calling the wrong person - then if you do, you have to hang up and starting navigating back to the party you wanted to call... it's a hazard and almost useless for making and receiving calls”
“I got an Iphone 1 month ago, and I used to have a NOKIA e62 and no drop calls, now everyother call gets drop in the same areas, as a phone, this gadget SUCKS!!!
I have two friends that complaint about this same thing.
I like it but I am getting fed up, If I am talking to my friends I can always call them back and laugh about it, but when I talking to a CUSTOMER it is not as nice.
I am ready to get rid of it!!!”
“I got an Iphone 1 month ago, and I used to have a NOKIA e62 and no drop calls, now everyother call gets drop in the same areas, as a phone, this gadget SUCKS!!!
I have two friends that complaint about this same thing.
I like it but I am getting fed up, If I am talking to my friends I can always call them back and laugh about it, but when I talking to a CUSTOMER it is not as nice.
I am ready to get rid of it!!!
“Great review - thanks for the info re blue tooth - I was hoping that I would be able to listen to music via the blue tooth facility on the phone. I have stereo bluetooth hearing aids and if the iphone did that then I wouldn't have to carry around an additional adaptor for my iphone (like I have to with my old ipod). Shame. The other disappointing thing for me is that the volume isn't great without updating the software. I need decent volume output for obvious reasons.
I hate to say it but my husband was right when he suggested that maybe this wasn't the phone for me - bummer! Thanks for the review - I have saved some money as a result.”
One of the reasons I have been debating this with Swordmaker on this thread... is that I hate it when history is rewritten to fit a corporate mythology that is mostly not true. I realize that when the corporation is the largest by monetary value in the history of the world and has nearly limitless resources and the slickest PR People in history... that this is bound to be a losing battle. But someone should make an effort to fight this type of propaganda. Shouldn't they?
No one talked about a "multitouch sensor" because that Is NOT WHAT IS WAS CALLED, fireman15. It was a "multitouch screen," and it was mentioned in every review I saw in the period. There was no such thing as a "multitouch sensor" because that is a misnomer that you would never find. Again, you don't even comprehend the technology.
One of the reasons I have been debating this with Swordmaker on this thread... is that I hate it when history is rewritten to fit a corporate mythology that is mostly not true.
The ONLY ONE attempting to rewrite history and spreading propaganda on this thread is YOU.
Now, I broke my determination not to address you again, but this one was so egregious it could not be left standing. I'm done.
Responding to questions from New York Times correspondent John Markoff at a Churchill Club breakfast gathering Thursday morning, Colligan laughed off the idea that any company — including the wildly popular Apple Computer — could easily win customers in the finicky smart-phone sector.“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”
Yet, fireman15, that is exactly what Apple did. Where is Palm today? RIP Palm.
Again, you are CHERRY PICKING only those reviews that fit YOUR misguided and outdated opinion. . . those that the writers are exceeding embarrassed they ever wrote them looking back with 20/20 hindsight. . . and some have said so.
Now, I broke my determination not to address you again, but this one was so egregious it could not be left standing. I'm done.
LOL!!! You crack me up!!! Sorry Swordmaker, but sometimes the strings that control you are just a little too visible.
Yes, I am sure all those reviewers and consumers were wrong!!! They were wrong about the dropped calls, the “quirky qwerty”, the lack of important and expected features, pathetic internet speeds that make you “ache for a dial-up modem”, and Apple choosing to partner with the most backwards cellular provider. Swordmaker... the reviews I linked to were from the biggies when it came to the most trusted sources of information on technology ten years ago.
The positive reviews you cite are mostly thinly veiled celebrity endorsements that had much more in common with Forrest Gump endorsing a ping pong paddle than a technical review. And Apple bought a hell of a lot of those types of celebrity endorsement “reviews”. They had deep pockets even then. And then we have a bunch of more recent “reviews” from people trying to rewrite history on the 10th anniversary of the first iPhone. These are laughable at best and make all manner or ridiculous claims easily refuted claims about the 1st iPhone.
And lets just get it out in the open shall we? The reason you keep harping on multitouch is not because it was so useful, so beloved, or even so noticed by people who used the first iPhone... it is because in an over-hyped phone with a pathetic set of features it was the only evolutionary improvement over previous phones that could be claimed as a somewhat original idea. And this was central to the billion dollar travesty judgment in the lawsuit against Samsung, not your little chart that has cherry picked pictures of phones before and after the iPhone.
You will continue to make outrageous claims whenever accurate historical information is posted or linked to about the first iPhone in this or any other thread. You are thoroughly invested in perpetuating the mythology about the first iPhone. It was just long enough ago that the memory of most can be influenced by this kind of nonsense. I am sorry but the first iPhone was a dog of a phone that had the one of the best marketing campaigns ever seen. But all the gooey eyed reminiscing in the world and all your endless sophisticated sounding nonsense will not change the facts. The first iPhone was not revolutionary... it just sold well and that caused the competition not to imitate but to improve their products. Which fortunately forced Apple to improve their products. And that is the way that capitalism is suppose to work.
“Sorry Swordmaker, but sometimes the strings that control you are just a little too visible.”
I just wanted to clarify this statement. Swordmaker is not employed by Apple. He is not that good; he is a toothless old tiger. He is a fanboy, a wanna-be. He may erupt in vicious insults, but anyone who has a cogent argument that contradicts his Apple centric view of the world can control him. Apple doesn’t hire people like that. If this thread were a test to see if he was good enough... he just failed miserably.
"What I like about the iPhone is that it is BETTER than every other phone I've used and it's actually fun to use and navigate. People want to quickly discount eye candy. Think about it. We love eye candy. We love animation. We love video. Otherwise we'd be content just reading text with no pictures, never watching a movie or TV and seeing everything in black and white with no color. We're visual beings. So the iPhone is appealing because it uses and stimulates our sense of touch and sight. I love it when people yell, "it's just a phone!"
Further down in his review, he makes the point that I made, one that I was called a liar for making by someone who shall go nameless because I am no longer addressing directly, who insisted that it was nothing unusual for a phone of the period to get a full Internet experience. What a load of revisionist TWADDLE that person claimed as truth when I knew very well he was full of it!
"After all I don't think any other phone (at least not any that I've seen) offer a full blown web browsing experience on a tiny screen. The implementation of Safari itself on the iPhone is well done! However, there are some flaws to this strategy. Most cell phone web browsers use WAP. WAP is a way for website designers to design a low bandwidth simple version of their sites. This works well on mobile devices. However, it's true you don't get the "full page" experience. Seeing that the iPhone doesn't support 3g and uses AT&T's Edge network instead, your pages could load painfully slow. Most commercial websites detect a WAP browser and automatically direct you to a lower bandwidth version of the site without all the frills. Since the iPhone uses a full version of Safari, that won't happen automatically. So you're going to get the regular site with all the graphics, etc. "
This person's claim that no one is referring to the multitouch sensors is completely specious. The Gizmodo review that is linked in the comments is a good example (emphasis is mine):
Like every other journalist will tell you, its multitouch UI, browser and iPod are all pants-worthy. . . .. . .I have spent many long minutes fingering the LCD, enthralled by multitouch's effortless ability to zoom into photos and scroll through long lists. It makes the 3.5-inch screen exponentially more useful than any 480 x 320 pixel LCD should be. What can Microsoft do with multitouch? They can put it in a friggin' $10k table for the Sheraton and T-Mobile. I love the buttonless design, and even if the keyboard is not as effective as a hardware model, it can be damn fast. While many tech luminaries have said they'd wanted to defenestrate the iPhone after struggling with its ghost QWERTY, people have been running at 35-40 WPM three days in. Safari on the iPhone is the best browser ever seen on a mobile, with or without Flash, because it actually renders everything "as it should".
So much for that person's assertions that multitouch is NOT even referred to in the reviews. It was, glowingly, just not his misnomer for the functionality.
You forgot to post a link to the long rambling blog post that you are calling a review. If anyone is patient enough to read a very very long piece of streaming consciousness from someone who apparently was never taught how to form a paragraph... then here is the link: http://terrywhite.com/iphone-review/
I am totally shocked actually, that this was the very best an expert such as yourself was able to come up with. Apple's incredible iPhone marketing team went to a lot of trouble fishing for positive reviews from well known individuals... and this is the best one you could come up with? It is pretty pathetic.
Swordmaker, how much of this review did you actually read? I am pasting some excerpts from the "review" you are citing that seem to contradict most of what you claim about the first iPhone being "revolutionary". Many of the shortcomings the author had with the first iPhone are the same issues that caused me not to purchase one. I can't remember any of these being issues with my PPC-6700 which came out 2 years before and was basically a Swiss Army knife when compared to the limited first iPhone. So again for all those who don't care to wade through a paragraphless monstrosity that Swordmaker has used as an example here are some excerpts:
"I gotta say that I don't love the virtual keyboard. It seems that so far I keep missing the keys on the right side. Nine times out of ten when I try to type an “o”, I hit the “p” instead. So I have to adjust and hit the key a little more to the left. Unlike the Palm, there is no calibration routine. This would be helpful so that the iPhone would know where you're likely to hit the keys.
The virtual keyboard is usable. It does work and I've banged out some emails and web forms on it. It's not as slow as I'm making it sound, but it's not as great as Apple would like us to believe it is either. Your mileage will vary. Apple suggests that after you get used to it you'll be able to type faster with two thumbs.
Since the iPhone is also an iPod it would be nice to have the music go over bluetooth as well. No chance of that currently.
Ringtones This would fall into the area of disappointment category. While the iPhone has 25 different ringtones built-in, they are kind of cheesy. Some are also not loud enough. I was really looking forward to using my own music which is already on the device as my ringtones.
If there was a copy paste feature I could at least email a note to the phone and then copy it into the the notes app. Alas Apple didn't allow for that either. Maybe this app should be called “Virtual Keyboard Practice” instead of notes.
I also get my Vonage voicemail as an attachment that comes in as a .WAV file. The iPhone email app doesn't play those attachments either. The one area that would help the iPhone get adopted more quickly by the business community is Microsoft Exchange Support. Without it, IT departments will not let you use the iPhone to access corporate email because of the security risks. Microsoft does license something called Active Sync. Hopefully Apple will adopt this or some other solution that would work. When this happens the flood gates would open. Until this happens it doesn't matter how great the iPhone is or isn't, the business community will be sitting on the sidelines and buying other smartphones.
Most cell phone web browsers use WAP. WAP is a way for website designers to design a low bandwidth simple version of their sites. This works well on mobile devices. However, it's true you don't get the “full page” experience. Seeing that the iPhone doesn't support 3g and uses AT&T's Edge network instead, your pages could load painfully slow. Most commercial websites detect a WAP browser and automatically direct you to a lower bandwidth version of the site without all the frills. Since the iPhone uses a full version of Safari, that won't happen automatically.
Over 98% of the computers on the internet today have the Flash player. This means that content developers can feel pretty assured that if they design a site that incorporates Flash, their content will be seen. Not having Flash or even Flash Lite on the iPhone is a serious drawback.
So it floors me and others that they didn't include this on the iPhone. The first thing my youngest daughter went to do when she grabbed my iPhone out of my hand, was to text her friend. I had to tell her, that's not going to work because SMS by default is only from cell phone to cell phone. She handed it back to me and walked away.
They think texting first, voice second. We can't talk about SMS without talking about MMS. MMS is multimedia messaging. This is real handy when you snap a photo and want to immediately send the photo to a friend's phone. I've done this a lot. For whatever reason, Apple hasn't included MMS on the iPhone. Yes, you can snap a photo, but you have to email the photo to the person you want to send it to and most cell phones are NOT set up to receive email. This is just wrong! Sure it would be nice if everyone had an iPhone, then it would be a non-issue because you could just email to your friend's iPhone. However, that just isn't the world we live in and it never will be. Apple admittedly only “hopes” to capture 1% of the cell phone market. So they know that most will not have iPhones.
Wi-Fi I believe that the iPhone has a bug in it when it comes to logging on to a WEP encrypted Wi-Fi network. Neither my iPhone nor my wife's iPhone would log onto our home network via the network password. Also note that my home network is using Apple's own AirPort Base Stations. So it's not a 3rd party vendor compatibility issue.
I'm surprised that it doesn't support 802.11n. Not that it needs to as there would be no speed advantage for surfing the web. However, if you had an 802.11n ONLY network, the iPhone wouldn't even see it.
AT&T is the provider for years to come on the iPhone. It's no secret that this was an unpopular decision to many. Clearly Apple would have sold many more iPhones if they were on more carriers. Most of my east coast buddies HATE AT&T because the service is so poor in their area. The funny thing is that while I never hear any say they love their phone, I do hear people say that they love Verizon all the time. I have Verizon as a carrier for my data card (EVDO) and the service has been great.
EDGE Edge is AT&T's 2.5g wireless data network. This network sometimes makes you crave dial-up speeds. It can be extremely slow. So needless to say I couldn't believe Apple would put their new internet device on this network and not take advantage of AT&Ts 3g network. Apple claims that the iPhone would have to be bigger and battery life would suffer if it were 3g. That may be true, however if the iPhone has any hope for adoption outside the US, 3g is a must
I would have run my favorite speedtest on Speakeasy.net, oh but wait, that requires Flash.
I was in the car with my wife and asked her to call the restaurant on her iPhone. She didn't have them in her contacts, but I did. I then realized that there is no way for me to send, beam or get the contact to her. You should at least be able to email a contact. How about bluetooth transfers? Nope, nadda.
Another example of where the iPhone could be smarter: I got an email from a buddy that contained his iPhone number. Great! I wanted to add it to his contact. Oh wait! There's no copy/paste function. There's no way to even save an email as a note. So I had to keep repeating the phone number to myself until I could get to his contact info to add it in manually.
Nevertheless, these features are missing today and some of them are key and make me scratch my head as to why they are not there now?
3g support – This was almost a deal breaker for me. Thankfully it has Wi-Fi.
Flash support – C’mon Apple, talk with Adobe and get this done. Steve, I hear you have a cool new phone in your pocket! The number is 408.536.3993 in case you forgot it.
Video recorder – Actually it was someone else that pointed this out. I didn't really think about the fact that there is no video recorder on the iPhone. Even my Treo has one. Seeing how Apple is all hip and cool when it comes to movies, music, podcasts and more, you'd think they'd let you record and send your own little video clips. Perhaps this was going to be too painful over EDGE.
Voice recorder – I don't use one, but many of you do! There is no voice recorder either. Since the iPhone has a built-in microphone it seems like it would be very easy to add this in via software.
MMS support – Doh! You can see that great shot when you get home honey. DUN – Dial-up Networking. This would allow you to use your iPhone as a Bluetooth wireless modem to your Mac Or PC laptop. Umm, Apple, you've been supporting this on other phones for years. Why not your own? Is it the EDGE thing again? I see. iPod games – Apple you sold me some cool $5 games for my iPod with video, but you won't let me play them on my $600 iPhone. Not sure why?
iTunes ringtones – This is another one for the “Doh!” category. I'm sure this one will come because there is money to be made. Besides, the ringtones on the iPhone are so lame that you'll want to buy or make your own as soon as they make this feature available. So maybe this was done intentionally to build up demand. I feel like I have all this music already on the device and it's being held hostage.
Removable Battery – This one doesn't bother me as much as it does others. I guess because I've gotten GREAT battery life out of all my iPods and have never had to have a battery replaced. However, from a convenience standpoint it would be nice to have two batteries for those long flights when I want to watch content on the iPhone and play games, oh wait, scratch that last part. Once I land, I could then pop in a second battery and be ready to get back to work.
Is the iPhone perfect or even close? Absolutely not, I’ve got a whole laundry list of things that I would like to see improved/added
In the comment section of his “Do I still like my iphone” blog post
arti ortega • 8 years ago
My biggest complaint is the camera & lack of flash. Just saw a friends Droid & loved the camera. My question to terry is, is a new iphone coming out this year? What can you tell us about it?\nTHX
Mei • 8 years ago
Sadly, I will be dropping my Iphone this year. I got it shortly after it first came out. I just don't get enough service and have checked with AT&T many times. I need something that is reliable and will get my emails to me everytime and on time. I see happy people using the newer Iphone and I think this one may work better than the first ones that came out like mine.
I hope you all have better luck with your Iphone and coverage than I did. I guess living in a remote area like —— Los Angeles,CA in a little known area called Malibu is just too small for AT&T.
FormerLoyalAppleCustomer • 9 years ago
I have always been a loyal Apple customer, but will never purchase another Apple product again....
N. Courtney • 9 years ago
I find it odd that Apple charges so much for a phone, and still locks you into a contract. When the industry started subsidizing the phones using the a backward retail model to begin with, it was just a matter of time that in the minds of the consumer the phone had no real value since it was being offered for a low price or for free, the retailers buy the phones for more than what they're sold, they make back their money from the carrier as long as the customer keeps the service active.
People who buy iPhones or even the iPod want to show off, it's still a communications device, and they're are a lot of communications devices that play music, have a timer, alarm clock etc. As with iPod, I have MP3 player, that also plays movies, and i don't have to keep them on the device, I can move the video to any computer of my choice something you can do with Apple products. they control the product and it's content, but some people are happy having other people control things for them, I on the other hand feel if I buy it I should be able to do whatever I want with the product and it's content as long as it's legal, on my terms not the ones dictated by Apple.
Unlike Adam, I'll pass on taking a bite from the apple. :)
Microsoft sucks. Period.
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