iPhone 4 press conf

[Merusk]

Yes there is, the excuse is that stupid people will pay it.  Yay capitalism.

[KallDrexx]

Yeah, phones like the Palm Pre are pretty damn tiny when the keyboard isn't slid out.  A smaller iphone could be doable.  But in all honesty I'd prefer the larger form factor of the current size.  A teensy iphone would be fine for basic phone and calendar stuff like the functions on the Pre, but sorta awful for typing and games, which get much easier to handle with a larger touch surface.

Additionally, Verizon was fucking the new iphone users pretty hard.  I checked on what it would cost to get an iphone as a current Verizon subscriber, and my monthly rates would've increased by $30 over what I'm paying now, without the $20 tethering feature for anyone dumb enough to try to get a good net connection for their laptop off Verizon's shitty 3G speeds.  I'm already using a smartphone on my current plan, with the usual extra monthly fee for the internet access, for about $80 a month.  There was no excuse whatsoever for them to offer me the same plan for $110 a month just because their voice waves were going to an iphone instead of a Palm Pro.

Err how is that price any different than their current plans?  It's not like it's IPhone specific, it's been like that for years.

[ghost]

Well, there's still the cheaper option of AT & T, or choosing a different phone and a different carrier altogether. 

As far as the size issue, I suspect they may come out with something between the size of the iPad and iPhone for people that do a lot of data work on their phone and would like something a bit larger for that purpose, but that don't do a lot of actual talking on the phone.  I unfortunately have to do a fair amount of talking at times, and would like something that more easily fits into my pocket.  Sony is looking at coming out with a phone option PS portable.  I think we'll have a lot of options about size and functionality in the future.

[KallDrexx]

Well, there's still the cheaper option of AT & T, or choosing a different phone and a different carrier altogether. 

AT&T and Verizon are pretty much price matched.  The only other options here are Sprint, which isn't a bad option, or T-Mobile, which blows for 3g here and spotty elsewhere (and neither have Iphones)

[ghost]

AT&T is reasonable where I'm at for service.  I guess it really depends up on where you live. 

[Kitsune]

Err how is that price any different than their current plans?  It's not like it's IPhone specific, it's been like that for years.

Upon further investigation, I found that they weren't raising the price on my 500 minute plan, but instead were only giving me the option of a 900 minute plan as a valued Verizon customer preordering an iphone.  I went to their website and went through the signup as a new customer and was offered a 450 minute plan for roughly the same price as my current plan.  So, may've been a glitch in their site during the floor of preorders, may've been an evil scheme to upsell customers into a more expensive plan, dunno.

[ghost]

Steve Jobs is not long for this world.

To heck with the unsteady gait.  This guy looks seriously cachectic.   

[tgr]

That wasn't a 55 year old body, that was more 70-80 years.

[Hawkbit]

Jesus Fucking Christ. 

Someone, anyone, going through an illness of that magnitude might be unsteady on their feet.  He's a human being:  News flash, we're all vulnerable in some way!

The amount of worry over his health is fucking retarded.  It's as if he produced the iWhatever through immaculate conception and once gone, Apple will crumble into the sea because there's no more iIdeas. 

The fact that someone is out there camera-raping him after his breakfast is disgusting.  What's worse you folks perpetuating it.  Let the man get through his sickness or die, but holy hell just give it a rest. 

[ghost]

That wasn't a 55 year old body, that was more 70-80 years.

Yeah, that's the cachexia.  Usually you see that in terminal cancer.

I suppose that the Apple company will continue to run without him, but Jobs had vision that they may find hard to replace. 

[Engels]

Should he go, the change in Apple will probably be gradual. There will be marketing attempts to keep the 'out of the box thinking' alive, or some such, but most likely, Apple will start to cut corners. No more IPS screens for the iPad, poor design choices that halve the lifespan of a Macbook, some messed up marketing for iTunes that slowly turns customers away, over the course of a decade.

The thing that I think people forget is that what makes Apple a success is the over all quality of the product. They aren't as 'out of the box' as their marketing makes you think. They branded the 'concept' of recorded voice files aka 'PodCasts'. They redid the GUI for BSD Unix. They joined the rest of the world in adopting an Intel platform. Nothing particularly groundbreaking, from my vantage point. What they did do, and what you're actually paying for at the register, is good quality hardware.

[Merusk]

That wasn't a 55 year old body, that was more 70-80 years.

Chemo beats the fuck out of you.  If you've never seen anyone go through it, what you've just seen is only a small glimpse.  It's not pretty and at times I questioned if it was any better than the cancer.

Should he go, the change in Apple will probably be gradual. There will be marketing attempts to keep the 'out of the box thinking' alive, or some such, but most likely, Apple will start to cut corners. No more IPS screens for the iPad, poor design choices that halve the lifespan of a Macbook, some messed up marketing for iTunes that slowly turns customers away, over the course of a decade.

The thing that I think people forget is that what makes Apple a success is the over all quality of the product. They aren't as 'out of the box' as their marketing makes you think. They branded the 'concept' of recorded voice files aka 'PodCasts'. They redid the GUI for BSD Unix. They joined the rest of the world in adopting an Intel platform. Nothing particularly groundbreaking, from my vantage point. What they did do, and what you're actually paying for at the register, is good quality hardware.

Those little changes were things that also happened during his decade away from the company, weren't they?  Lots of small, poor decisions that had them teetering until he went back and beat them back in line.   While Apple's products may not be the work of one man, its culture and dedication to quality certainly have been.

[ghost]

Chemo beats the fuck out of you.  If you've never seen anyone go through it, what you've just seen is only a small glimpse.  It's not pretty and at times I questioned if it was any better than the cancer.

Where he's at with the weight loss isn't the chemo.  They've improved side effects some over the past 15 years and also have developed some pretty decent anti-nausea medicines like Zofran. I expect Jobs to go within the next 6-12 months. 

[Merusk]

My dad lost between 30 and 40# when on heavy chemo.  He was so thin and frail I thought I was hugging a 90 year old at times.  He wouldn't eat because, despite the nausea medications, he'd just sick up or feel nauseous all day when eating.  It eventually went into remission, but it was awful watching him go through it. Watching Jobs there reminded me of the exact same walk and shake he had when doing chemo.

Also, in the end it wasn't the cancer that killed him but his practitioner's failure to remove his chest port for over a year beyond its schedule, which got infected, passed through to his brain and set off a series of strokes when he was in a car accident some 5 years after the heaviest of the chemo.

[ghost]

Yikes.  Sorry to hear that Merusk.  When did your dad undergo his chemotherapy?  A real problem with patients with some forms of cancer is fungal infections of the mouth and esophagus.  That can be very difficult to treat too.  Why didn't they remove the port?  That sounds weird to have problems 5 years after the chemotherapy from it, and if provable could be lawsuit worthy.

[naum]

Should he go, the change in Apple will probably be gradual. There will be marketing attempts to keep the 'out of the box thinking' alive, or some such, but most likely, Apple will start to cut corners. No more IPS screens for the iPad, poor design choices that halve the lifespan of a Macbook, some messed up marketing for iTunes that slowly turns customers away, over the course of a decade.

The thing that I think people forget is that what makes Apple a success is the over all quality of the product. They aren't as 'out of the box' as their marketing makes you think. They branded the 'concept' of recorded voice files aka 'PodCasts'. They redid the GUI for BSD Unix. They joined the rest of the world in adopting an Intel platform. Nothing particularly groundbreaking, from my vantage point. What they did do, and what you're actually paying for at the register, is good quality hardware.

Those little changes were things that also happened during his decade away from the company, weren't they?  Lots of small, poor decisions that had them teetering until he went back and beat them back in line.   While Apple's products may not be the work of one man, its culture and dedication to quality certainly have been.

I do not think it is the same scenario as the previous Jobs departing. Then, he was nuzzled out by more corporate centric foreseeing inner crew. Today, he has surrounded himself with like minded people -- Jonathan Ive, Tim Cook, etc. who share his mentality and are totally down with his product philosophy. That designer chic vibe and eye to overall product quality.

[Prospero]

I guess this is the place we talk about iPhones in general. The new music support for iCloud is bad ass. I bought a song on my PC and within 20 seconds my phone had downloaded it. I'm pretty shocked it just worked given all this stuff is in beta.

[01101010]

This iCloud thing comes off as some big huge iTunes catalog database that just ties a person's id to certain data in the catalog and then to the devices linked on this id. I dunno how I feel about this...

[KallDrexx]

More information about iTunes Match can be found here if anyone is interested

[Prospero]

This iCloud thing comes off as some big huge iTunes catalog database that just ties a person's id to certain data in the catalog and then to the devices linked on this id. I dunno how I feel about this...

They already have ids tied to iOS devices and to Apple accounts, we just finally get some useful services out of it all.