Disqus - Latest Comments for Colin_M

Re: The only thing that can touch iPhone fever?

Colin_M — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:40:24 -0000

I think the GPhone is by far the most intriguing device to hit the mobile market in years, far more so than the iPhone because everyone had a pretty good idea what the iPhone would be, look like, feel like, etc. The GPhone is a total mystery by comparison.

My suspicion on it is this (crystal ball time) - it'll look hellaciously sexy. It'll have to, the iPhone has raised the bar in terms of what a phone's meant to look like. Now, Google themselves obviously won't be handling the hardware side of things, that'll be left to more experienced hands, and HTC, Samsung, et al I'm sure can come up with glossy enough bits of plastic - HTC already did a nice job designing the iPhone for Apple... oh, sorry, it's a completely original design, eh Steve? ;-)

But leaving the looks aside, the real killer (or what'll get it killed) is what it does. My gut feeling here is that I think Android v1 may be a disappointment, and it'll be v2 before we see its true power. Why? Because although Google can obviously give it best-in-class webapps, that won't be enough. We don't all live in 3G jungles, which means the device is going to have to have a solid OS and Apps that can stand alone without a fast connection. That's reality, even more so in the US than the UK, where huge swathes of the country are still waiting for EDGE, far less 3G. Google's experience in those areas is much more ropy (if it were otherwise, dear Google, then why haven't you gone for the Mother of All Battles with MS and tried to kill Windows once and for all?)

Let's wait and see, but my feeling is that Android 1 will be rough-cut. Google's webapps work brilliantly, but let's face it, they doesn't win any beauty prizes either, and when you're selling phones, how cool the interface is is FAR more important than what your webmail looks like on a screen. I also worry that while Google's willingness to embrace 3rd party developers might be a refershing change from Apple's "our way or no way" approach, that could bite them in this game too. To be blunt - geeks create great software, but they've never been big on the UI side of things because they get too excited about the tech and forget to make it easy to use. Lemme guess... Android will have a command line interface option? OK, probably not, but I'll bet there's a million and one geeks who wish it did.

Re: No Firefox for the Apple iPhone

Colin_M — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:23:59 -0000

Is this really any great surprise? Apple have pulled a remarkable smoke & mirrors trick for years, convincing everyone they were the Robin Hood to MS's Sherriff of Nottingham, fighting oppression of the big bad corporation that wanted to control everything we do. Now Apple have finally come out into the light themselves (out of that closed little world they inhabited), we're seeing on a daily basis that they're control freaks to an extent that Balmer would actually blush.

Apple's business model is "you sacrifice choice for stuff that works flawlessly" - and it seems to have served them well up to now Only problem is, once you start embracing the internet as a whole (an area where Apple are utter novices by their own admission - see MobileMe), that model runs into trouble, because you have to face the reality that your artificial product protection barriers are exposed as such, especially when your own products are just inferior (see MM again) or when potentially better options come along (Firefox) yet you shut them out by those artificial means. You begin to look... churlish? Controlling? Self-interested? Afraid of competition?

Raises an interesting question though - With the admission of that the Kill Switch exists, with stories, not just of the infamous IAmRich, of applications being pulled overnight from the App Store with no explanations to developers or customers/users, and with instances like this (it's only the beginning... mark my words, Apple know they're out of their depth with web apps and are going to be throwing up even more barriers)... short of jailbreaks, who REALLY owns the phone, you or Steve?

Re: Next BlackBerry to dump HSDPA for EDGE

Colin_M — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:08:26 -0000

IntoMobile must be getting their updates by snail mail. BGR did a full rundown of the device.xml file in the Bold a few month's back which revealed the following devices:

- Bold (duh), originally called the Meteor. Release imminent.
- Thunder (or poss. "Storm"). Touchscreen-based, release anywhere from October (if you believe the rumours to Q1 2009)
- Javelin: 3G-less bold, but better camera (3.2Mpx vs 2Mpx) and higher-res screen.
- Kickstart - Fliphone style, designated 9100.

Also, two as yet unknown devices - Seawolf, which appears to be another flipper with the addition of GPS, and a real weird one, the "Aurora", which (a) has an 81** designation (suggesting similiarity to the current Pearl) but (b) has the same model number as the Thunder/Storm. BGR reckoned it could be a defunct prototype, but was guessing out loud. Personal theory - 2+2= Candybar style device (as they don't have one announced at the moment to succeed the Pearl), but incorporating a smaller touchscreen. My guess only (if it even exists).

As for the Javelin appearing without HSDPA - horses for courses. The Bold & Thunder/Storm will offer it, that we know. However, as HSDPA/3G is about as much use as a choccy teapot if the mobile web is of no interest to you (other than draining your battery faster), RIM may as well offer something else up WITHIN THEIR RANGE to those people who that usage profile applies to, and if they can save themselves a few dollars in build cost to allow them to throw in a better camera/screen, why not indeed?

Of course, if they'd just give ALL the 'berries decent cameras to start with instead of being perpetually 3 years behind everyone else... what are we up to now, 8Mpx on the immediate horizon? Sure, it's massive overkill (if I want a camera that good, I'll splash a couple of hundred on a good SLR), but just to keep up with the Joneses... would 5Mpx be too much to ask?

Re: For normobs, Twitter simply isn’t on the radar — still

Colin_M — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 07:59:27 -0000

That's a good example of how Twitter CAN be constructively used - a communicator for a small group of people. I think the real trick with it is you have to be self-disciplined and subscribe to the feeds that are actually important to you, the ones you actually might need to get an update on in real time. What Twitter does provide is an effective "One to Many" medium. OK, "Charlie" could have just sent a multirecipient text, but then she's paying for each of the recipients - good way to gobble up your monthly allowance, that is...

The issue arises when you lose that self-discipline and start subscribing to anything/anyone you might only be vaguely interested in. Then you get deafening levels of noise, and you lose the needles in the haystack. Look at Robert Scoble - I read a thing a while back where he claimed he follows some absurd number of Twitterers, thousands basically. I remember doing the arithmetic on it and it worked out he'd be receiving a tweet, 24/7, once every 12 seconds. That's just showing off, and of no practical usage. To actually read every one of those would be impossible, but there's no effective autofilter in place.

Simple solution - subscribe to what you NEED, the rest can wait.

Re: For normobs, Twitter simply isn’t on the radar — still

Colin_M — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:47:10 -0000

Ewan, Ewan, Ewan... why is it whenever I check in here, I find something that brings out the worst in my nature? Last week, iPhones. This week, Twitter.

I don't use Twitter, I should point out. Never have. I know what it is though, and know what it does, and that was enough for me. I also know a few people who use it (and as you'd be unsurprised to learn, they're ubergeeks). I don't hate Twitter, I should also emphasise. In fact, it's an application that has a lot of potential - well, if it ever achieved some semblance of stability under pressure, that is. You and MartinSFP have already pointed out some of the benefits it could have combined with localisation services.

But, as with so many Web 2.0 tools, their potential has been lost in a sea of overwhelming noise. We're getting too much information, from too many sources, and truth is, we need to all cut back on it. We keep whining about how overloaded we all are with information, problem is... a lot of it we bring on ourselves by inviting it in for tea.

Straight-up question Ewan, to echo what your friend James said - why do you NEED Twitter?

Well... I'm waiting.

Still...?

OK, truth is, you don't. You just think you do. You've been conditioned to think like that, because you work in the tech industry, where everything new has a buzz about it. I'll bet you work horrendously long hours too (because anyone involved in tech, especially start-ups, does) and when you spend that much time in a certain environment, you begin to mistake "the bubble" as being representative of the world as a whole. Hence your surprise that Normob users couldn't give a tweet (couldn't resist!) about Twitter. They don't care because... (gasp)... it's actually not that special to them. It fills a need they don't actually recognise as a need in the first place, and they know it. At least in how it's currently being used. The thing with normob users is that until you can show them something in a product that will actually positively impact them - they'll be suspicious of it at best, and just not care at all at worst.

Will Twitter survive? Unless it is put to uses beyond what it currently amounts to (electronic confetti), it will survive in the tech community as a geekerati-favourite for a while. Until something else comes along that aces it, which'll probably be a year at most. But growth into the promised land of widespread normob user adoption? Don't hold your breath. It's already struggling with scalability for one thing, and even if that's solved, for it to become a universal service will require the type of funding that will only come with some way of monetizing the service.

Ahh yes, the secret weakness of every Web 2.0 app, that someone, ultimately, has to pay the bills, and the Venture Capital won't keep coming forever. One day, you have to pay your own bills, or get your customers to pay them for you. Oh, just sell advertising and turn into the new Google? Yuh. It's that easy. That's why everyone turns into Google.

Re: The SMS Text News iPhone has arrived!

juliancooling — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 05:47:38 -0000

I agree up to a point. That point is that the marketting is actually part of the iPhone. The technology and the publication campaign are an inspererable bundle. How many people who buy Nokia have heard of Ovi and will get any benefit from it?

Cadbury's chocolate is second rate technically and actually quite expensive, but it is all most people want because they really understand it. The ads make it clear, if it is wrapped in violet then it is yummy - easy!

My wish is not that technical people get frustrated with Apple's success but that Nokia et al wake up to the fact that they are engineering companies that sell to people, not engineering companies that sell to engineers.

PS: Nelson Mandella did actually blow things up and shoot people. The problem wasn't that he was sent to jail (he even pleaded guilty to most of the charges of violence against him) but that they didn't let him out when his sentence was complete.

Re: What’s so great about the iPhone?

smstextnews — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 06:46:03 -0000

Giant men using a mini Windows Mobile device with stylus = a comedy on the
station platform

Re: What’s so great about the iPhone?

smstextnews — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 06:44:05 -0000

Colin, kudos for sparking such an excellent debate.
Re: iPhone being ahead of it's time -- the iPod was coming under sustained
barrage from the mobile manufacturers. The experience on most handsets
(Nokia being one of the biggest manufacturers of 'music' devices -- or
MP3-enabled devices), was and still is utterly dire. But Apple couldn't
afford to ignore the threat to their iPod line. They had to do something
and I think the time was right.

Re: Carphone Warehouse FAILS to sell me an iPhone

bvlad — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 20:25:14 -0000

Don't worry, it's not only GB. Every time I walk in a real-world store I am reminded why I shoudn't have bothered. Same procedural BS, plus asking anything is pointelss, since in most cases I end up explaining to the sales chap what he's selling.

Re: What’s so great about the iPhone?

Colin_M — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 18:36:50 -0000

There's a good reason why 1/5th of Fortune 500 co's were prepared to participate in the i3G trials - they are seriously considering adopting it.

... "Seriously Considering" and actually adopting are two separate things. Let's wait and see. Oh, and my money would have been on "if someone offered you a free phone that a whole bunch of people are going to be walking over their grannies to get in a month or two and would probably make you a fortune on eBay, would you turn it down?"

The US Military - why not? Touchscreens have a lot going for them in a military environment where space is often a consideration. I could see that.

"You can't turn a ship like Nokia or SEM around in 6 months."

... SE, probably not. They're clueless, and are still trying to figure out how they used to own the portable music device market then all of a sudden... they didn't. SE is blighted by political infighting, and they cannibilise. Which is, in a way, a shame, because Ericsson (pre-Sony) was the cool and alternative Audi to the big and brassy Nokia BMW back in the '80s.

Nokia... we shall see. Their recent moves with Symbian suggest both a tightening of the grip and a loosening of the control. They're shitting themselves over Android basically, and know they have to get Symbian sorted out fast or Google are going to eat them for lunch. Nokia have had a life of luxury so far, because they're so enormous and dominant in the mobile industry (smartphones aside, but smartphones are a very small segment) that they could more or less do what they wanted. Now there's a new kid about to come and live on the block, and he's got a bit of a reputation. In 6 months? No, it won't happen that fast, but they know that they have to make Symbian something independent developers feel comfortable working on or they'll all just piss off and take Google's coin instead.

"And Blackberry? Please. Son of Niche of Niche. Just because a few 10's of millions of lawyers & traders live by them, big deal. The new iPhone plans will make a huge difference to uptake. For most people it was the price that put them off i2G."

... there aren't that many lawyers and traders (if there's that many lawyers, we're all f*cked anyway). They have 43% of the smartphone market. Apple have 19% (based on the last published quarterly figures, Q1 08). Those figures will narrow dramatically in Q3 for reasons already stated, but will widen again in Q4. I always love hearing the anti-Blackberry rants from those who own other devices. It's hilarious. It's hilarious because they KNOW that RIM are doing something right, but they can't, for the life of them, figure out what it is! What is it? Don't ask me, I have no idea either, and I have one! Is it JUST Push Mail? Could be. But to me that says maybe Push mail is something that a lot of people actually want, and just because Steve Jobs doesn't think it's important won't change that, and maybe, for the first time in a decade, he misjudged something? (Damn, I've just committed Cupertino Heresy...) However, to dismiss pushmail as something unglamorous and not worthy of attention? Basille and Lazardis just hold up the market share chart and say "and...?" Actually, I'm surprised Jobs didn't get that one, he, above all, was meant to be the guy who understood consumer demands better than everyone else, yet when something that obvious was shone in his face, he decided he knew better? Weird.

"The ongoing BB price is prohibitive"

Factually untrue. Walk into a store and ask. By the way, Blackberries have a habit of lasting. I know guys who're still using c. 2004 models, because they still do everything they need them to do. How many of today's iPhones do you think will be around in 2012? Irrelevant? Not when you consider TCO based on how often you need to replace a device.

"What I do know is that Android as it stands is so bloated it only runs on 7200-series chipsets. Expensive."

Today's expensive chipset is a mid-range at best 12 months from now, and as you said that's when we'd probably be looking at an Android based device, that'll be the case. Can't argue on the timescale, my guess is they'll launch Q3 2009, expecting Apple to launch a 3rd Gen iPhone iPhone by Christmas - get their retaliation in first and steal the thunder.

"Q: has Dave seen/played with one, actually used some apps/ visited some sites?"

Actually, he has, kinda - he's played with my Touch hooked up via the office WLAN. A couple of "that's quite cool", but no, no real "gimme, gimme, gimme". The issue here isn't the device, it's the content. Back to Ewan's rant the other day - the mobile web just sucks. But that's not surprising, as the WWW itself hasn't seen any significant innovations in about 5 years. That's a different discussion for another day though. GMaps? Hardly a compelling reason to have an iPhone (it's available on every platform). Pushr - now who's talking about apps/facilities no-one in normob land gives a hoot about? I don't know a single normob user who utilises Flickr or anything like it. You know how they share their photos with their friends? They email them to them. The technorati hold their noses in disgust - email atttachments! How 1999!!

Re: What’s so great about the iPhone?

Mike42 — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:57:09 -0000

"Make no mistake, it's RIM that Apple are after, because the corporate market is where money's made"

A corporate deciding to roll with RIM means sod all to their IT strategy. A PC's a PC. It's different with i3G. Apple are using the i3G as a way in to business changing to Mac's, not because they make money off selling iPhones. There's a good reason why 1/5th of Fortune 500 co's were prepared to participate in the i3G trials - they are seriously considering adopting it. Including the US military, FFS! This is a fundamental point.

"Today. Let's wait and see what RIM bring with the Thunder and other manufacturers bring with their efforts"

You'll excuse me if I don't hold my breath. You can't turn a ship like Nokia or SEM around in 6 months. And Blackberry? Please. Son of Niche of Niche. Just because a few 10's of millions of lawyers & traders live by them, big deal. The new iPhone plans will make a huge difference to uptake. For most people it was the price that put them off i2G. The ongoing BB price is prohibitive, and all they really offer to consumers is push email. If you don't care about push email, a BB is back in the herd of devices vying for your attention.

"Further, in the wings we have the spectre of Android looming, and it's a huge wildcard no-one knows what to make of"

What I do know is that Android as it stands is so bloated it only runs on 7200-series chipsets. Expensive. Not mass-market at all. I don't know anyone expecting an android handset in the next 12 months, but with $15Bn in loose change who knows what Google could do?

"The "inherently better overall experience" I would dispute. It depends on the individual user experience. "

Yup. But I've yet to meet anyone normal who says less than "Wow! I want one, at the right price"

"Case in point - mate of mine. Let's call him Dave.... Now, with i-Day approaching, I asked him about this last week. Was he excited about the iPhone? ...Couldn't care less."

Q: has Dave seen/played with one, actually used some apps/ visited some sites? I agree, if your previous experience was crap you will be unlikely to believe the hype. But again, my experience with Normobs is that after a few minutes of gentle advice and demo ("Gmaps can do THIS, Pushr can do THIS" etc) they are off, running and want one.

Re: What’s so great about the iPhone?

Colin_M — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:41:42 -0000

Does anyone still use stylii? No, I'm being serious. I only mention it because my first PDA was a Palm, and although it's long since went to the great PDA graveyard in the sky (or "landfill", to use the ancient Greek translation), I found one of it's stylii lying out in the garden shed the other week. I threw it at the cat from across the road for hanging around the bird table, and it seemed to provide a more accurate proposition in flight than it ever did as a control device.

Re: What’s so great about the iPhone?

Colin_M — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:34:25 -0000

How dare I complain about the iPhone. Yup. Sorry, didn't realise the Jobs Mind-Control 'bots would come down on me for that. Guess I'll be turned into Soylent Green by nightfall then. Damn.

With ref to the pictures - you're semi-correct. If you consider that even a full hi-def image comprises not much more than 2 million pixels (1920x1080), then yep. Why even bother with anything over 2M pixels then? One word: "Zoom". Another word: "Crop".

With ref to "warez" - so you're saying that anything not produced and approved by Oberfuhrer Jobs must be warez? Better tell Google that, 'cause they're producing stuff that Steve hasn't approved yet. Case in point - I use GooSync to two-way sync my Google Calendar with my BB Calendar. Doesn't work in iPhone. Only program that does (as far as I know) costs you $30 and you have to jailbreak your iPhone to install it 'cause it ain't on Apple Apps Store. Must mean Steve's not managed to force whoever makes it into passing $29 per download to him.

Re: What’s so great about the iPhone?

Colin_M — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:25:42 -0000

James, actually, when you think about it - with the iPhone you are shaping yourself around the technology rather than vice versa than ever before. That's Apple's entire business model - "do things our way, and if we market it hard enough, you'll thank us for it". It's worked so far, because they're riding a winning streak of hitting the bullseye on "how to do stuff", but frankly, and IMO, they've not taken any "wild ass swings" at anything yet and have stuck to safe territory.

Oh, and customer satisfaction surveys? Not worth the paper they're written on. Self-Justification made the whole concept of customer satisfaction surveys obsolete years ago.

Re: What’s so great about the iPhone?

Colin_M — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:05:02 -0000

@Mike42: OK, I'll go with MOST of that. Not all of it though. You've put a pro iPhone slant on it, so you'd naturally expect a counterpunch.

A couple of minor caveats, then a big one.

>> "Many love the touchscreen. Some hate it. They are in the minority. Apple could do a QWERTY device that solves this problem, but if enterprise take-up of the i3G proves it not to be the barrier many thought they probably won't bother" <<

I don't know if they are the minority. There's not enough data to suggest one way or another so far. RIM are still outselling Apple by 30-40%, let's not forget that. The gap will no doubt narrow on Q2 figures because Apple have a new device out in this quarter (you'd never have guessed, would you?) and RIM don't. But it'll equally no doubt widen again in Q3 when RIM make their new releases. Make no mistake, it's RIM that Apple are after, because the corporate market is where money's made, not Joe Public who wants to fight for every penny discount he can get. Problem with RIM of course is that every time they're written off, every time someone says "this is the end for them, they've been outmaneouvered now"... it's weird, their stock seems to go up. Something tells me the fund managers know something we don't.

Enterprise take-up of the i3G - we shall see. However, don't know if you saw this, but there was a story floating around the other day that Mr Jobs has been active on this already, and has been visiting a whole raft of CTOs at Fortune 500 companies. And with him, allegedly, is a semi-working prototype of what might be iPhone 3. Featuring a slide-out keyboard alongside the touchscreen. Now, if that's true, and knowing that Jobs has a sense for what people want, ever get the impression that maybe he's already been told "if you want us to stop using Blackberries, then you'd better give us a real keyboard?" That would, I admit, be the ideal scenario - hard QWERTY for heavy duty messaging, touchscreen for pinch, poke and swipe consumer functions. BUT... does he then risk alienating a group of people who DON'T want to see a hard QWERTY 'cause it isn't cool enough?

>> "It is far easier for Apple to do a QWERTY keypad than it is for existing QWERTY manufacturers to do a multi-touch screen, browser and overall UI."

Today. Let's wait and see what RIM bring with the Thunder and other manufacturers bring with their efforts. Further, in the wings we have the spectre of Android looming, and it's a huge wildcard no-one knows what to make of. It could, on one hand, be the mobile equivalent of Linux (actually, think it's Linux based) - beloved by geeks because they can tweak to their hearts' content, but rejected by everyone else because it isn't slick enough for Joe Average to use (the "Anti iPhone", if you will). Geeks don't tend to care too much about UIs, they're more concerned with the technomasturbation. Then again... Android might be the rest of the mobile industry's worst nightmare, something that blows everything else out of the water. The reality? Probably somewhere inbetween the two. But I'd lay money that the first Android-based devices will be touchscreens, Google can't afford to be seen as doing anything less than being innovative, and with recession dead ahead, and them currently 90% reliant on advertising for revenues (discretionary spend being the first thing that gets slashed to the bone when everything goes tits up), Android isn't a toy they can afford to mess around with and who cares if it all goes wrong - they desparately need an alternative monetized product for the bad times ahead.

OK, now the BIG caveat.

"But this doesn't detract from the device's inherently better overall experience compared to other devices."

The "inherently better overall experience" I would dispute. It depends on the individual user experience. Speaking for myself (as that's the only person I'm indisputably qualified to speak for!), and yes, having used an iPhone, it didn't give me that. Why? Maybe because my needs are in areas where the iPhone's "way of doing things" doesn't exhibit any better overall experience. Biggest thing I use my device for? Calls, Messaging and Organizer functions. OK, calls are a wash. Messaging and Organizer functions? Sorry, Blackberry kicks the iPhone's butt there, and only a fool would claim otherwise. Of course, the 'berry can't come remotely close to the iPhone as a Media Manager/Player or as a web-browsing device, and for someone to whom those things are more important, yes, the iPhone is definitely a better choice.

OK, take away the Media Manager/Player element ('cause you can get all that on an iPod already), and the iPhone's future fortunes rides, by and large, on the mobile web experience. That, as you agree, is the iPhone's "Killer App" (I hate that term). Take away those elements from the iPhone, and you'd be left with... well, an iPod with a bog-average cellular/comms module. But, it has that mobile web experience, and that's its differentiator. As you've said, the iPhone's triumph is that it, more than any other device, has the chance to convert the Normob masses, who so far care about nothing except phone calls, texts and the odd snapshot, to a much bigger "Mobile World".

With me so far? Good.

Now... what if they still don't care? What if, after having seen what the iPhone can do, the normob masses just give it all a big collective shrug of the shoulders?

See, it seems to me that the iPhone is banking really hard on the Mobile Web being a massive success, and because it's now easy to access, courtesy of these new shiny black (or white, if you can find one) toys, it's going to explode. But what if it doesn't?

Case in point - mate of mine. Let's call him Dave (a good idea, as that's his name). Dave's a prototypical normob user (Nokia 63-something, I think). He makes calls, he texts and he takes the odd picture. That's it, nothing else. Now, with i-Day approaching, I asked him about this last week. Was he excited about the iPhone? Could he wait to experience the joys of the web while on the move?

Couldn't care less. It's not that he doesn't use the web. He does - I work with him, and I've passed his desk many times at lunchtimes and he's been reading the news, buying something off Amazon, booking a holiday, etc. But being able to do all that (and more) on a mobile device? Nope, no real interest. I asked him why, and he said something that would probably put a chill down the spine of anyone who's banking on the mobile web being their future way of life. As close as I can remember, it was "The web's fine and useful and all that stuff, but I just don't need it every minute of the day, and I don't WANT it every minute of the day. It's a tool I use when I need to, but I don't need it THAT often. I've got the rest of my life to get on with - my REAL life, where I can interact with REAL people face to face, and I'm not going to sacrifice that to be messing about on the web, 'cause that'd make me a sad geek like you". I told him to f*ck off and start interacting with the bar staff as my glass was empty.

OK, now take Dave, and multiply him millions of times over, because I don't think he's atypical. The iPhone, and a lot of your argument, is banking on the only reason the Mobile Web hasn't gone ballistic is the lack of a practical device for Average Joe to use. But what if it isn't? What if they're all like Dave, and they're just apathetic regardless? What might be more worrying is that I can't entirely disagree with him - the mobile web doesn't keep me awake at night either, but whereas he's coming from a position of "not knowing and not caring", I DO know what the mobile web feels like (on an iPhone) and it still doesn't have me breaking out in sweats.

Maybe that's the iPhone's biggest issue - ahead of its time? Yep, TOO far ahead of its time. Until there becomes a compelling reason for Dave and those like him to have to have web access 24/7 and wherever, why would they bother? The rest of the iPhone portfolio - like I said, take away the "already available on the iPod you already own" stuff, and what's left is pretty unappetising fare.

Re: Carphone Warehouse FAILS to sell me an iPhone

Colin_M — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 15:59:14 -0000

Why am I suddenly thinking of "Computer says noooo..." woman from Little Britain?

That's the "service" industry of modern GB for you. Absolutely bloody hopeless. The second anything happens that varies one micron from their procedure book, they're utterly lost. That's the real benefit of doing all your shopping online: Better prices? Nice. More choice? Gotcha. Delivered to my door? Love it. NOT having to deal with people one rung up from burger flipping at Maccy D's? The angels are singing in heaven...

Re: What’s so great about the iPhone?

whatleydude — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 09:15:21 -0000

Colin,

You're not on your own. Really.

J.

Re: What’s so great about the iPhone?

Colin_M — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 08:33:28 -0000

Mike,

You made a number of good points and deserve a response, but only got the Disqus thingy set up just now (Ewan, can you delete my original shorter response I did last night (when I was nearly asleep) out of the queue, it's redundant).

Mike - you may be surprised to know that I actually agree with you on a lot of that. My issue with the iPhone is the way it's being trumpeted as the be-all and end-all, because it's not. It never has been. You know it, I know it, and Jobs knows it too.

What Apple have done with the iPhone is the same thing they did with the iPod - it wasn't the first DMP, nor was/is it the best sounding. The reason for its massive success was rather that Apple made the first DMP that "Average Joe/Jill" felt absolutely comfortable with. Everything up to then had always required at least a small bit of geekery and awkwardness (mainly because everything up to then had "Sony" embossed on it, and they make the worst interfaces known to man. Still do, come to think about it).

I'm fully on board with what you're saying the Apple approach was. I get it, OK? Normob users care about three things - calls, texts and a bit of photography. The rest, they don't give a hoot about. Apple knew that, and made sure these elements were included. Then they added another couple of elements - organizer functions, email - that they knew they had to include to gain some level of comparability with smartphones already out there. The next group of functions were the easiest for them - media management - because they (Apple) already had that expertise in spades via the iPod, and given the new device was basically going to be an iPod with all the new stuff bolted onto the chassis, that didn't require more than 5 seconds thought. Finally, their ace card, the mobile internet. Normob users don't care about it right now, because it's a horrible experience, I agree. Apple have (and this is their biggest success) made it... OK, I won't say enjoyable, because mobile browsing is still a long way from being that... but they've made it at least practical and palatable.

Mix it all up in a big bowl, add some sexy touchscreen sugar, and you've just baked an iPhone. But wait? What about the other 600 functions you can do on a Nokia N95 or whatever? Steve? Steve says "Oh, them? No-one cares. Fuggedaboudit". And, of course, he's right. There's more too - as you've rightly pointed out, they equally don't care about the "nuts and bolts" of it all. So he's told them "you don't need to worry about all that anymore - I'll make those decisions for you, one less thing for you to worry about, so you can get back to your carrot cake!" (Sorry, couldn't resist, I lived in Northern CA for six years, and the stereotypes actually do fit the reality).

So I understand the mix, right? I'm no Apple hater, in fact on a commercial level, I admire what they've achieved very much. They've taken smoke and mirrors to a whole new level, not in the least by still having a lot of people convinced that they're the noble, struggling Robin Hood types fighting the Evil Empire of Redmond when in fact, Jobs is such a control freak that he makes Steve Balmer look like a champion of open-source.

I don't retract my criticisms of the iPhone though. MMS? OK, I'll give you that one, as it's not really widely used. The lack of copy and paste? No, I'm sure most normob users don't copy and paste - because their devices can't, end of story. But every WinMo, Palm or Blackberry user can. Would it have been too much to ask, Steve? Seriously? The crappy camera though is a real miss. This is, remember, one of the three core Normob demands. Actually, I forgot, it doesn't have a flash either. Come on Steve, what would putting a flash on it have cost you? $1 extra per unit? Hey, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Apple's market research said "the normob users only need 2Mpx because they never look at their pictures anywhere except on the device itself. Could be that. Maybe it also told them "and they don't take pictures at night either", but I doubt it. Actually, there is a rumour that Apple originally really messed up here - that they literally forgot about the camera until something like two months before Jobs's keynote where he'd pull it out (insert Fnarr, Fnarr joke here) and the assembled acolytes would all go "oooo!!!!", because they assumed it would be easy to do, something they could add at the last minute. It wasn't, and the result was a bargain-basement rush job.

I'm equally not going to retract my criticisms of Apple's distribution/pricing practises. They're a joke, and have been long before the iPhone. One of my pet peeves to this day regarding iTunes store is the pricing they apply to music downloads. 99c per track represents zero discount on buying the CD, and furthermore, it's an inferior product (128kbps AAC - try listening to that on anything other than the earbuds and if you can't spot the difference between that and the original, you're factually tone deaf). For 99c Steve, I want that track in Lossless format at least. But, I'm guessing that... yep, Apple's market research told them that hardly anyone ever does listen to these tracks via anything other than the earbuds.

All of which points to what Steve Jobs really is and what Apple has become - a popularist, and a very, very good one. He gives the people what they want. He doesn't give them the best, just what they want - and in some cases, he actually manages to convince them they want something they didn't actually KNOW they wanted before.

And if the iPhone had been described that way from the beginning, I wouldn't have had a problem with it. What is it? It's a smartphone for Normob users. It doesn't bother with every last function, just the important ones, and it's done them (with the camera exception) as well as anyone else has so far.

But it's NOT the "GodPhone", so let's not describe it like it is. Instead of giving an honest forthright appraisal though (on both 2G and 3G releases), what we got was every tech writer in the world suddenly transformed into a dribbling fanboy who completely ignored all the iPhones faults and talked about it as if it was 110% perfect. It wasn't. Not then, not now. "Oh, it's got a touchscreen, that makes everything else look SO obsolete!" - no it doesn't, you cretin! Touchscreens have +s and -s, how about you discuss them instead of conducting your own personal experiment on how easy it is to... ahem... wipe down the touchscreen?

For me (and I may represent only a very small proportion of the market)... it just doesn't work. It has too many shortcomings. For the interests of disclosure, what's sitting next to me as I type this on my PC? Two devices - a Blackberry Curve and an iPod Touch. Best of both worlds as far as I'm concerned. The Touch does everything that's good about the iPhone, but lacks the phone/messaging/3G elements (still get the WiFi though). The Blackberry is my phone, my organizer, and my messaging device (for those functions, RIM still rule the waves). The Blackberry lacks badly in the media management and mobile internet departments, so I leave those to the Touch. Does that 1-2 punch have shortcomings? A few, but they're minor, and some of which will go away once the 8300 gets replaced with a BB Bold in the next month or two (hopefully), but not enough things will be eliminated to make it perfect. For that, I'm waiting for iPhone 3 (whenever that may be... in time for next Christmas), the BB Thunder (Q1 09?), and maybe (if they can make it semi-usable) the Sony X1. I doubt we're even within a year of seeing the ideal "all-in-one" device though, and it's certainly not the iPhone of today.

Re: What’s so great about the iPhone?

Colin — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:37:30 -0000

REPLACED BY SEPARATE RESPONSE BELOW

Re: The SMS Text News iPhone has arrived!

Colin — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:55:22 -0000

Fire away, would be interested to hear counterpoints. Not trying to start a fight or anything, actually just want to see if anyone has the answers that have so far eluded me and those I've spoken with. Problem so far is that when I HAVE raised such point to iPhone owners, they seem to struggle to counter with very much - and I wasn't being sarcastic about the "skinny latte" either, because at least two were eventually reduced to "yeah, but look how COOL it is!". Mmm.

BTW - I must apologise to Steve Jobs about the Copy & Paste accusation. Steve's since informed me that he didn't forget it at all - you can get it from the App Store, $12.99 (with a minimum 18 month contract). ;-)

Re: The SMS Text News iPhone has arrived!

smstextnews — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:44:08 -0000

That deserves it's own post. If you don't mind Colin, I'm going to re-post
with it's own page.

Re: The SMS Text News iPhone has arrived!

Colin — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:43:27 -0000

Someone please help me out here, 'cause I'm on the verge of giving up. I've tried - really - to understand the iPhone hype. I've become used to it in the mainstream media, because the mainstream media are gullible, and thus easy prey for Apple's unstoppable spin machine. But here, on a site which specialises in mobile tech, I really thought I might hear some sense amongst the hysteria. But no.

OK, anyone? All I want to know is the answer to one question. What, precisely, is so damn great about the iPhone? I really can't see it. I hear it's "revolutionary" - but it contains hardly any features not seen already on other devices, many of which have been around for quite some time.

It has 3G? Great, there must be at least 50+ devices doing that now. They're pushing a 2Mpx camera with no videocapture when "normobs" are offering 5Mpx or more WITH videocapture. The lack of videocapture means it's actually irrelevant that it lacks a front-facing secondary camera for videocalling. It still can't handle MMS, and Apple's only (weak) response to that has been "but it has full email capability, you don't need MMS" (oh really? And how are you meant to exchange picture messages with the 95% of the market who don't have email capable phones, or is the truth that iPhone users are trying to form an elitist clique where they'll only converse with the similarly equipped while looking down disdainfully on the "normob wielders"?). Can you copy and paste yet in messages? Errrr... OK, what's Uncle Steve's explanation for that one, is copy & paste obsolete now too?

My personal current favourite is the ludicrous congratulations being heaped on Apple for the new App Store. Yeah! Great! Apparently, iPhone users now have the incredible ability to... wait for it... actually install new applications on the devices they paid for! Congratulating Apple for that is a bit like saying Nelson Mandela should thank the people who imprisoned him for eventually releasing him (i.e. he shouldn't actually have been imprisoned in the first place, so why the hell should he thank them?) Just curious, does the app store also include the facility to install your own ringtones instead of being limited to just the ringtones you've had to pay Uncle Steve yet more money for? Mmmm... let's see... oops, let's not go there. The App Store? Every major mobile OS has an "App Store" out there on the web, offering umpteen times the amount of software Apple's does, and when Android-based devices eventually arrive, they'll have an "App Store" everyone will struggle to match. For God's sake - if Steve Jobs physically kicked these people in the nuts, they'd probably thank him for it.

We'll also just gloss over the fact that if I want an app. for a Blackberry, Palm or Symbian-based device, I just need to Google it, and if I can't find what I want... well, I could always write it myself and slap it on there! I could do the same for the iPhone, couldn't I? Well, no. Because the only way of getting an app onto an iPhone is via the iTunes App Store, which means that Uncle Steve STILL gets the last word on what you can put on YOUR device (remember, the one you paid for) and what you can't. Speaking of money, although I can't blame Apple for this directly, the tariffs offered by O2? Still in excess of what you pay for any other device. Same with AT&T in the US, and there's been a virtual revolution in Canada over Rogers's initial data plan offerings.

Bottom line, the iPhone has one (or two, if you're picky) thing(s) going for it - Mobile Safari is the best browser out there, and combined with the multi-touch screen, it offers the best browsing experience currently available on mobile (you trade that off for messaging though, tests have proved the iPhone touchscreen is no faster to type on and suffers from the same error rates as predictive text keypads, both being roughly 3 times as slow as a physical QWERTY a la Blackberry). But for how long? Speaking of RIM, rumours are beginning to circulate that they've seen the iPhone as a shot across their bows, and are going to respond full-force with the upcoming Thunder (or Storm, no-one's quite sure of the name). Electrokinetic touchscreen? The same engine in their new browser as M-Safari? Ouch. If they get multi-touch on that too, the iPhone's only true market-leading features just bit the dust and quite probably got aced. Hard to believe the browser bit considering the existing 'berry browser is so bad, but this is what Apple have brought on themselves in a way - they set new standards in this area, now everyone else is going to copy them.

Still, keep believing the hype. Of course, I forgot the iPhone's other big advantage - ooo... doesn't it look cool sitting there next to the skinny latte and the organic carrot cake? I'm waiting for one of the iPhone poseurs to start claiming that Steve Jobs actually INVENTED 3G. Eh? No, He DID! He really, really, really did. And the internet. Or was that Al Gore?

Re: How long will we be trapped in this mobile hell hole?

Colin — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:05:05 -0000

A very interesting article, and a sign of the networks we should, one day, hopefully soon, enjoy. But I'm not holding my breath. However, if you'll indulge me, I took your thoughts and ran with them. I know this isn't quite "mobile-related", but something's been nagging at me for a while, and I want to get this off my chest. What you're describing is a microcosm - of communications, of all kinds. I see a world, and I want to live long enough to see it, where technology moves out of its current dual-world existence of "business" and "pleasure" and morphs the whole kit and caboodle into something that will actually improve our lives in much more expansive ways. It's feasible, but we have such an incredibly long way to go.

Try this for size - sorry for the length, but I think you'll see where I'm coming from.

Every weekday, nearly 18 million vehicles are on our roads. Around half of these are ferrying people to work in office buildings. Many of these people will then spend the next 8 hours looking at computer screens and typing on keyboards, or talking on the phone, or attending meetings. But little else.

Now, imagine those people found a different way to work. Imagine that half of them didn't need to go to the office (or visit clients) ever again. Imagine another half only needed to go to the office (or again, visit clients) 2-3 times per week (we'll average it out at 2.5 days for the sake of simplicity). That would mean, all other things being equal, nearly 7 million less vehicles on the road each day, or close to a 40% reduction. That proportion will only increase as the UK moves ever further away from "hands-on" manufacturing and towards an economy in which service is the overwhemingly dominant sector.

And that's just "the workers".

Now take into account the numerous "2nd car families". While many of those 2nd cars are engaged in that daily commute, there's also a big proportion which aren't. Those cars exist for different reasons - to allow the stay-at-home partner/parent to get around while the "1st car" is off on commute duties. What for? The infamous school run, for one - while in my day I walked (to primary school) or took the bus (to secondary school), in today's environment of street crime and sick individuals who prey on kids, many parents don't want to take that risk every day and would rather take the direct responsibility for shifting their offspring door-to-door. Then after the school run, it's time to go to Tesco or wherever - with grocery shopping more and more taking place in megacomplexes on the outskirts of town rather than on our local high street, walking to the shops simply isn't an option anymore.

But imagine that all went away too. Shall we say another 10-12% less vehicles, so we're now looking at a 50% reduction in total.

So... I'm just a touchy-feely environmentalist, and I'm dreaming. Aren't I?

Actually, anything but. I personally feel the environmental lobby is a bit of a crock based on pseudo-science that's been manipulated to provide an awful lot of people with jobs. But, I suppose I could be wrong, so bear with me. What I've just described, regardless of reason or motivation, is HALVING the traffic on our roads, which would in turn, again all other things being equal, equate to a 50% of traffic-generated carbon emissions. The benefit might be fuzzy, but it can't hurt, can it? Moreover, what's not so wooly is that what would equally follow would be a 50% reduction in the congestion suffered by our massively overburdened road network - that part, I would argue, is pretty much solid.

So what's this all about and WTF does it have to do with communications technology? Because all of this is achievable, through technology.

Let's take our "worker bees" first. OK, I've described what they do, now tell me what, in those functions, they couldn't do... from home. We have access to fast connections. We have PCs. We have email. We have IM, and we have SMS. We have phones. We have remote access to systems and files in both office environments (even if just through good old Terminal Services) and "sitting out there on the cloud". We can even videoconference - there's even a program already installed on every PC in this country called Netmeeting. Nobody uses it anymore. It might be basic, but for a simple videomeeting? It's all you need! Damn, our kids do it all the time on MSN Messenger! What about Skype and other VoIP systems? So why the hell do we need to go to offices to do all of this? I'll explain why, but not just yet.

Now, our two car families. Before I get to the "School & Tesco crowd", let's stay with the workers for the moment. An interesting statistic, published in one of the rags just this last weekend. The article showed a map of Britain, with where the biggest growth and lowest growth in 2 car families was occurring. Guess what? The highest growth was in the North of Scotland. The lowest (and in fact, it showed a decline) was in London. Stands to reason, doesn't it? While London/Ken Livingston has made great efforts to drive people onto public transport (by both carrot and stick), the further you get from the capital, public transport becomes more and more of a joke. Certainly in the North of Scotland, public transport is so sporadic that it isn't even an option to get to where you need to be with any kind of expediency. No wonder they need two cars.

Yet what's driving this requirement in the North of Scotland? It's the economy. It's the fastest growing local economy in Britain. Land is cheap, so are rank & file workers (relatively speaking), so it's an attractive area for companies old and new to relocate to, especially if your needs are not tied to geography, and as Britain moves more and more towards the service-based economy, that will only continue to be the case. All of which makes it even more ironic that those same companies based in Inverness or wherever, who've rejected geography as a limitation, still insist on pulling their staff into the office, day in, day out.

But what of those "non-commute" second car families I mentioned? How do we reduce their travel requirements? Again, why not let technology take the strain? Groceries? Ahem... Tesco Direct, anyone? Or any of the equivalent services offered by their competitors? Great service, no idea why more people don't use it. The School Run? OK, let's get radical - how about we only send our kids (physically) to school 2-3 days per week, and the other days... they stay home and "attend" over the internet? Videoconference lessons, etc. The only actual reason we should even send them to school at all is for the sake of their own social and personal development, to interact with others. Would it cause problems with kids being at home and childcare required? A minor logisitical difficulty - give 'em all laptops, then parents can develop rotas of watching over a few kids at a time (and if more parents are at home anyway, you'll find plenty of candidates). The teacher, meanwhile, can check attendance via webcam, and can log onto any kid's box at any point in the school day to see what's going on (the same system could be used by paranoid bosses who think their staff are skiving off). Privacy? Not a concern - each user has to consent to let the teacher/boss see what's on their PC, and at the end of the day, they disconnect them, whether they like it or not.

The benefits? God, where do I start?

(1) Our companies and corporations no longer need to invest in buildings capable of housing hundreds of people if many of their employees never need to come in, so they can save money with smaller premises where hotdesking schemes can be put into operation.

(2) Our schools will no longer be so overcrowded - which might, in turn, allow the pupils who need more help to have more time spent on them. They could physically attend the school to have teachers work directly with them. I don't even need to mention the fact that every bit of evidence ever published also shows that today's kids are far more receptive to PC-based learning than anything they get in a classroom. Oh, and did I mention that MAYBE, if they spend all day at the PC, they might actually get off their fat little butts and do something more energetic in the evenings instead of being glued to the screen as they are now?

(3) Supermarkets will no longer have to hold massive landbanks, which will free up more land in our overcrowded nation. We actually might spend a bit less with them though, because we'll no longer face that situation we've all encountered where we buy something only to find we had enough of it in the fridge all ready, and we end up having to toss it out. Considering we throw, what is it... a third of what we buy in the bin nowadays? Not a bad idea.

(4) That saving, of course, will pale next to how much we'll save on fuel and on wear & tear on our vehicles - take away the daily commute, the school run and the Tesco Express, and what's left (I'd say 90% of my mileage is spent on these three things, maybe more)? Except maybe for many of us to actually enjoy driving again? In fact, even if our employers asked for a small reduction in salaries (say 5%) because we didn't need to commute anymore (another benefit for them), I think a lot of us would take it (especially as it would only equate to even less after tax) if the benefit to us was not having to spend 10% of our disposable incomes on fuel every month. Everyone wins! Damn, have I just done the Bank of England's job for it and reversed wage-driven inflation as well?

(5) How about the TIME we would save not having to sit in traffic each morning and each night? Time we could spend with our families, and our friends. Time we could spend with our neighbors - I recently spent some time with an old school friend who I hadn't seen in years. He's doing well: nice house, nice area. I asked him what his neighbors were like. Guess what? He barely knows them. He hardly sees them because he's out of the house at 6.30 and not home until 7.30 at night. Did I mention he's only lived there about five years? Suffice to say, you can't have community spirit if you don't actually have a community.

(6) Similiar thing (and a topical one) - that we also get to spend a lot more time enjoying that house we just mortgaged our asses off to buy instead of using it as little more than a place to sleep, eat and spend the weekend. How about the London property market in particular, where nothing's affordable anymore? Well, no more need for the well-off to keep that "city crash pad" they use four nights a week because "home" is four hours away out in the counties, so all that living space suddenly is freed up!

... and I could go on.

Yet it's not happening. Why?

It's not that we lack the software to make this all happen. We have 99% of it - right now. The 1% we don't have isn't anything to be scared of either, it's the kind of stuff that could be built in months, maybe even weeks, if the developers actually knew there was a market for it and someone asked them to build it. It's not lack of desire either - nearly everyone I know would be delighted to be able to lead the kind of life I've described above. So what's stopping us?

Implementation.

Just as you are disappointed with how far the mobile comms market has come, I'm even more disappointed with how little we've actually done with the communications industry as a whole. Our networks are rancid - quite frankly, if everyone adopted this lifestyle tomorrow, it wouldn't last 5 minutes. The sheer bandwidth it would require is massive, hundreds, perhaps thousands of times what today's backbones are able to handle (for a microcosm of this, wait until next week when you'll see a whole bunch of disappointed 3G iPhone wielders wondering why their shiny new Stevephones don't seem all that quick after all - because a hundred thousand mobile devices suddenly hitting our pathetic 3G network is way more than it's able to handle). That assumes of course that we could all actually get connected in the first place - and we wouldn't, because with everyone logging on "as an individual" rather than via a company proxy server (if they even use a proxy, many office based users don't use anything more than their LAN because they never need to "leave the building" to get what they need), we've suddenly brought the IPv4 address availability issue home to roost in a nightmare scenario of permanent latency. In short, the internet as we know it will crumble through overwhelming capacity demand. Tesco might not need that landbank for stores anymore - but I wouldn't sell 'em off, they'll need them for server farms.

And that's where we are - the internet, in the widest sense of the word, is just not built for this. That, to me, and considering the benefits I've shown above, is nothing short of criminal. Massive investment is required, and yes, someone (us) will have to pay for it, but the benefits are too large to even contemplate ignoring. But the future (and this is where I rejoin the mobile world) is definitely... in mobile. To lay the amount of hardwire cable to accomodate this sea-change in communications will take three or four decades if we try to dedicate "a cable for everyone". The efficient solution HAS to be wireless, if even for cost reasons alone. Yes, it'll cost billions, but better billions than trillions. Yes, we'll need hundreds more masts, and the environmentalists and NIMBYs will no doubt complain, but considering what we've already done for the environment (see back at the top), I think they're asking for an inch after we've already ran a mile.

Like I said, I liked your article, but I think there's bigger things out there than being able to read restaurant reviews and book one from our handhelds in less than 10 seconds, or finding out one of our friends has just bought a book on Amazon and thinks we might like it too. Perspective here - these are luxuries, frivolities... things that make you go "yeah, that'd be nice", but let's face it, we're pretty darned spoiled if we're saying that's what's going to ramp up our life-satisfaction index a few more points. I'd far rather change the entire fabric of our society for the better. It can be done, but we're moving at a snail's pace.

Utopian Rant - Done.