Replies

There was less than a 1% build out of 3G in 2005. In fact, when your phone was released in 2005, CDMA was only live in the San Francisco Bay area.

Absolutely not true! Maybe you are confused about the actual release date of the PPC-6700. It did not come out until the end of 2005. We are in the Puget Sound region. I was an early adopter but did not get mine until I believe February or March 2006. We got impressive 3G performance through out our area from Olympia to Everett and in most places along the I-5 Corridor. 3G worked fine in the Portland- Vancouver area as well. And Sprint released the PPC-6700 not Verizon and initially Sprint had the more developed 3G network.

Although as I assume you are aware Sprint and Verizon had reciprocal agreements. My brother is an airline plot and had a Verizon PCMIA card for his laptop. The performance of his PCMIA card was nearly identical to that of my phone only he had to pay dearly for it every month. But he was able to use it at nearly every major airport in the country by the end of 2006

Years later when the iPhone was released my best friend on the fire department immediately purchased an one. It's internet performance could only be describes as pathetic in comparison to the PPC-6700. And its performance was much closer to that of a 56k modem than the theoretical performance you claim. But you do make me laugh with your nonsensical claims.

As for your comment about Steve Jobs changing the iPhone’s screen at the last minute. . . that occurred in NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2006, in the weeks before the announcement.

Just like your claim that the 16GB version of the original iPhone was available when it was first released at the end of June 2007 when it actually wasn't released until February of 2008... your timeline is contradicted by the historical record and even Steve Job's biographer. Quoting from the New York Times.

“I Want a Glass Screen’

In 2007, a little over a month before the iPhone was scheduled to appear in stores, Mr. Jobs beckoned a handful of lieutenants into an office. For weeks, he had been carrying a prototype of the device in his pocket.”

“In mid-2007, after a month of experimentation, Apple’s engineers finally perfected a method for cutting strengthened glass so it could be used in the iPhone’s screen. The first truckloads of cut glass arrived at Foxconn City in the dead of night, according to the former Apple executive. That’s when managers woke thousands of workers, who crawled into their uniforms — white and black shirts for men, red for women — and quickly lined up to assemble, by hand, the phones. “

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?_r=2&ref=charlesduhigg&pagewanted=all

I think it is possible that you are making some of these claims without malice... that you simply don't know much of anything about non-Apple products and their development and rely on equally ignorant people for your information about non-Apple products. At least I am hoping that is the explanation. I do not know a great deal about Apple products, but I do know a lot about the non-Apple products that I have years of experience with.

For instance, the GPS built into the PPC-6700 was usable only usable for Sprint navigation services that one had to pay extra for. There was a concerted effort in the modding community to unlock this feature which was never successful. I am not sure why, if you download the following pdf you will be able to see that it was an advertised feature... one which I actually did use on occasion, before purchasing a Bluetooth GPS device.

http://www.sprint.com/dealerrewards/PPC6700SP_flier.pdf

It is difficult to keep up with someone whose fertile imagination is willing to make up whatever “facts” he needs to support his arguments. I am sorry we went down this road together because although I have always considered you a great resource here on Apple products; I now realize that everything you claim must be double checked. And when you disagree with someone you almost immediately call them a liar and make sincere sounding claims that actually are just made up. It reminds one a great deal of political debate with the Clintons or the Obama administration. Fortunately no one is probably following this discussion, because as far as I am concerned you have done a great deal of harm to your credibility. I find that very sad and especially over a subject that is obscure to most people.

I am not making up any facts, Fireman. The E911 GPS in your phone was not a true turn-by-turn GPS and your TeleNav GPS software only worked with an external BlueTooth GPS system if you wanted any thing close to accuracy. That is why your Modders were not successful in "unlocking" the GPS. THERE WERE NO GPS ANTENNAS IN YOUR PHONES and the radio was not GPS capable. It is really that simple.

"yeah but you miss the big picture. a chip isnt worth a hill of silicone if you dont have an antenna to hook to it" — Source XDA Developers Forum VX6700, PPC6700 ROM Developers

I have double checked my facts I have posted on here. . . and your facts are the ones that are lacking proof. Just because some myths may disagree with the historical facts, does not make me wrong. I have sources that disagree. . . and I was there, and disagree with your anecdotes and myths. I have provided source material and links. This last post of yours is the first time you have provided any links at all. Bravo for you.

Again, Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo are your friends. A search of using Telenav GPS with the PPC-6700 revealed this gem in response to the question "Can I use TeleNav GPS Navigator with my new Sprint PPC-6700?":

"no, now that you've dropped 600 bux on your nice new device be prepared to go out and buy an addon GPS unit ...... sucks dont it?"
and:
"I tried getting Telenav to work using Microsoft's Webshere which plays java. I think that would have bee nthe only possible way to get it to work. I got it to load the program but it would just hang where it says loading graphics. I couldnt get it past that. So I caved in and purchased a BT reciever and iGuidance. It has worked great so far. I also like that it tells you your ETA throughout the trip. Its a handy feature. Especially when having to get to work. This way you know if you need to speed up or you can start to relax because you will make it with lots of time to spare. It obviously changes as you drive. When you first punch in the addy, the ETA is based on what should be the speed limits for each road. Then as you move it will change throughout based on your speed and location. It might sound like a little feature but, I keep my gps on all the time even when I know where I am going just for this."

Other sources came up with the same results. . . it works with an external Bluetooth GPS unit, not the internal e911 GPS.

I do not post things about non-Apple equipment without double checking my facts. . . and often triple checking with factory sources. YOU however, believe your own hype. You claim stuff about Apple you know only from myth and second hand information as if it were completely gospel truth. . . even though it has been disproved by many other sources. The Jobs biography has been roundly criticized for many inaccuracies from insider sources. . . and the glass screen story is one of those. FoxConn and its employees claim to this day that none of that story happened. From even the NYT story:

The company (FoxConn) disputed some details of the former Apple executive’s account, and wrote that a midnight shift, such as the one described, was impossible “because we have strict regulations regarding the working hours of our employees based on their designated shifts, and every employee has computerized timecards that would bar them from working at any facility at a time outside of their approved shift.” The company said that all shifts began at either 7 a.m. or 7 p.m., and that employees receive at least 12 hours’ notice of any schedule changes.
Foxconn employees, in interviews, have challenged those assertions.

FoxConn and its employees have no reason to argue that they cannot and did not do what was described. It would be a superior marketing claim for management, and a source of pride for its workers that they accomplished this. . . yet they ALL say it never happened.

By the way, the narrative did not come from Steve Jobs it came from an anonymous ex-Apple executive. Good source there? No. Unnamed sources can say anything they want and no one can deny it is true. Apple, as usual, remains mute.

I've told you that I'm an ex-CEO. . . I am intimately familiar with critical path planning. . . and it is very obvious to me that what the New York Times claimed was literally impossible to have happened in the time the unnamed ex-Apple executive claimed it all did.

Fireman15, think very, very critically about the so-called timeline in the New York Times story, which was part of an "exposé" of so called Apple failings, many of which later turned out to be from false narratives, including quotations from multiply discredited Michael Daisey whose documentary on this same topic was PULLED from NPR for creating quotations, mis-representing facts, falsifying videos taken at a manufacturer as being from FoxConn when they were not, etc., and when confronted with these lies, claimed he wasn't a journalist, but a performance artiste and was using artistic license in falsifying facts to get to the underlying truths as he knew they must be true, even though he had no evidence!. Examine their story about the change in iPhone screens from the view point of a businessman making that decision and see if it is at ALL feasible to do. As an ex-CEO, I did, and frankly the NYT story stinks like six week old fish.

Just six weeks before the June 29th release date, in the middle of the initial production of iPhones, the main screen, a major component of the iPhone is going to be completely re-designed from the ground up. It makes absolutely no technological sense! It is not as if Apple had not had issues with scratched screens before.

No, Apple had their share of such problems on the iPod Nano, and in fact in 2005 a class action lawsuit was filed against Apple for just such scratches on the iPod Nano screens, which Apple settled for around $30 million ($25 per iPod Nano).

Out of the blue, Steve Jobs notices that a product they have been testing for at least two years while under development, and which numerous Apple employees have been already been carrying in their pockets, (and that testimony in the Samsung patent infringement trial shows they had planned for quite some time to use a glass screen), and has undergone multiple laboratory durability tests, suddenly notices scratches on his iPhone's "plastic" screen. — Day ZERO
Steve Jobs calls an emergency meeting of the iPhone planning team and frantically announces "I want a glass screen!" — 1st Day
Apple executive heads for China under orders from Jobs to leave immediately. "Why are you still here?" at the meeting. — 1st Day
Apple immediately stops all work on the iPhones already in production at FoxConn, idling the assembly line and all the workers at millions of dollars per day in costs.— 2nd Day
Steve Jobs and Tim Cook scramble searching for a better than ordinary glass.— 1st Week, 5th Day
All already assembled iPhones are disassembled and "plastic" screen assemblies are removed and trashed high cost. — 1st Week, 7th Day
Steve Jobs finds Corning Glass with its unnamed miracle glass. Flies to Corning, NY, to meet with President of Corning Glass. President of Corning demonstrates a glass that is harder than anything else they have, is flexible, but they haven't found a use for it. He tells Jobs that cutting this hardened glass this hardened glass usually causes it to crack or shatter. Corning, the world's foremost developer of Glass products, has been unsuccessful in finding a way to cut this glass. — 2nd Week, 8th Day
Corning send several sample sheets of this hardened glass to Apple engineers in California for study and experiments. Shipped next day Air. — 2nd Week, 10th Day
Apple's engineers do extensive experimentation to find a way to cut "large sheets" of hardened glass into 2.4" X 3" screens and to properly curve the corners to the proper diameters, drilling the home button hole and bevel them after cutting. Normal glass is usually hardened after cutting, drilling, beveling, polishing, etc., to avoid the cracking and shattering. This was not possible with the Corning hardened glass. It had to be done post production. All of this was NOT a trivial engineering feat. (Three weeks, working seven days a week, to do this difficult research is a very conservative estimate!) — 2nd Week, 11th Day to 5th week, 33rd Day.
Apple Engineers find solutions to cutting, drilling, curving, beveling, polishing the hardened glass without breaking it. — 5th week, 33rd Day.
Once engineering has proved the Corning hardened glass CAN be cut to size, Steve Jobs orders sufficient glass for primary order of glass to meet production needs for initial shipment of iPhones for delivery to manufacturing so iPhones can be delivered to stores and customers (by June 29th!), Right sure. . . — 5th Week, 34th Day.
Corning ramps up production of a glass they had no use to produce before for any other purpose. Other orders will have precedence before Apple's new order. Order received — 5th Week, 36th Day
Apple has to locate a company in China that has sufficient space (Oh, WOW! Some entrepreneurial company just happens to be building a plant for a very similar purpose on the off chance that someone just might someday need such a thing!) and the expertise to implement Apple's new technology of cutting these large sheets into small screens. How amazingly and miraculously convenient!— 5th Week, 40th Day
The cutting technique that Apple engineers created has to be scaled from lab technique to an a reliable, automated manufacturing production process with a sufficiently low failure rate, not an easy task (that is what killed the Sapphire project in 2014). Again, not a trivial task. Industrial design of such equipment usually takes three to six months. Steve Jobs puts it on a rush. All stops are pulled out and job is to be done with a six weeks with complete flow charts, plumbing, schematics, electrical wiring, digital software, etc. Started. — 5th Week, 36th Day
Apple's executive negotiates an immediate contract with this convenient and available company with their empty factory plant. — 6th Week, 45th Day
Apple Legal begins back and forth necessary to coordinate contract for factory space and contract work. Minimum time usually for work like this is six weeks. — 6th Week, 48th Day
Design and engineer the automated cutting, drilling, bevelling, polishing machinery for production of the glass screens completed, designed to fit the space in the new factory. — 11th Week, 78th Day
Apple contracts with the Japanese Company that builds all of Apple's automated tools for Apple in California, then for FoxConn and later for Pegatron, to build the specialized automated hardened glass cutting, rounding, drilling, beveling, and polishing equipment to Apple's design and specifications, and then ship and install them in the newly contracted Chinese factory. These will be tools which Apple always insists on owning to assure that no other company can use them for their products. RUSH Order.— 11th Week, 79th Day
Contract for new factory finalized and signed. — 12th Week, 85th Day
Corning ships sufficient (~5,000 48" x 96" sheets to allow for breakage) the large crated glass sheets to China by some very fast transportation. With crating at 4 sheets per crate, it would take about 10 Boeing 747 loads (est. by weight), allow five to six days travel time. Or ~40 Land and Sea boxes by freighter through the Panama Canal, six weeks travel time. Apple opts for Land and Sea Boxes. — 12th Week, 87th Day
The Chinese Company has to get its glass cutting line set up to handle production of at least one million small glass screens with curved corners. Which, by the way, is a different question than just cutting rectangles. Company starts preparing for installation of tools per Apple specifications, installing water lines, electrical, data cable lines. — 12th Week, 88th Day
Japanese machine tool company ships Apple's automated glass cutting tools to Chinese factory. — 16th Week, 113th Day
Hire staffing for the factory.— 16th Week, 115th Day
Japanese Machine tools arrive at Chinese Factory and installation begins. — 17th Week, 121st Day
Corning Glass shipment arrives. — 18th Week, 126st Day
Japanese Machine tool technicians finish installation of machine tools and instruct Chinese Management in operation. — 19th Week, 135th Day
Train staff on the operation and control of the new equipment.— 19th Week, 137th Day
Test the assembly line with staff in place and work out any bugs and there will be bugs. — 20th Week, 140th Day
Begin production of the screens. — 21st Week, 147th Day
Glass is cut to size and corners are rounded to appropriate radius, hole drilled, glass screens then require all edge beveled and polished. Check QA.— 21st Week, 148th Day
Ramp up to be producing at least 500,000 glass screens. — 22nd Week, 154th Day
Package in bulk for shipment to next step in manufacture. — 22nd Week, 156th or 158th Day
Glass screens are shipped to LCD, Touch Screen assembler. — 23nd Week, 161st Day
Cut glass screens are laminated to touch sensors and LCD screens and then QA tested. — 24th Week, 168th Day
Screen assemblies repackaged in bulk for shipment to FoxConn. — 24th Week, 168th Day
Final screen assemblies shipped to FoxConn for assembly into the iPhones.— 24th Week, 170th Day
iPhones tested, packaged, and Air shipped to Apple port of entry and customs. — 25th Week, 175th Day
iPhones clear customs.— 26th Week, 182th Day
iPhones arrive at Apple distribution centers for delivery to Apple Stores and shipment via FedEx.— 27th Week, 186th Day — SIX MONTHS, start to finish!

All of this had to be accomplished in the six week time frame in time for delivery of up to 500,000 iPhones on the weekend of June 29th to expectant customers waiting in line at Apple Stores and to customers via FedEx.

The timeline doesn't work at all. Using conservative business estimates, using critical path reasoning, it takes SIX MONTHS to change the screens on the iPhone! It didn't happen. If you disagree, try to squeeze all those steps into the six weeks of the New York Times timeline. . . and I do not think anyone could do it. Frankly, it is impossible. . . even with Apple's miraculous abilities in organization and just in time inventory control. There are just somethings one cannot change about how business is done, no matter WHO the business is. Six months is miraculous to accomplish all this.

More evidence: The weight of the iPhone as announced on January 9, 2007 is exactly the same as the iPhone that shipped on June 29, 2007. . . yet glass is much heavier than plastic. In fact, the glass is at least three times as heavy as plastic. Oops, how can you replace a lightweight plastic screen with a heavier glass screen of the same size and thickness and NOT gain weight? Answer: You either completely re-engineer the device to lose weight somewhere else, or you cannot do it. Ergo, there was no change in materials between January and June. . . only software improvements and waiting for FCC regulatory approvals.