Apple announces Apple TV and iPhone

[naum]

Jobs Pulls an Oprah — $12M in iPhones for all Apple employees

[schild]

Uhhhh, that's not an Oprah. That's providing employees with something they should probably know to spread the word of the cult.

An Oprah is giving a full fledged G5 to the entire audience of the MacWorld Keynote. I.E. Not people on your payroll. Or people that are indebted to you in any way.

[Righ]

I thought that this was amusing: proof that the iPhone will support Flash.

Apparently it didn't occur to the doofus that made that site that Chiat Day might have just superimposed video of a non-iPhone rendered web page onto the iPhone.

[Viin]

IM vs Text Messaging:

 There might be a way around this, but when I was looking at the data plan for my wife's new Blackberry, it lumped IMs with Text Messaging and said IMs count against your 'text message' quota. Maybe there's an app you can load that doesn't treat IMs as text messages, but I haven't looked into it yet.

[Krakrok]

Verizon has that same IM = text message ripoff scheme. What a joke.

[MrHat]

Went and played w/ the iPhone a bit at the local Apple Store.  God damn, that's a sexy piece of equipment.  Makes me extremely excited to see what one of the other companies will put out that isn't as closed as this is though.

[Righ]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,133638/article.html#

I'll give them the top 5. The rest are either required and expected (durability) or meh (Coverflow). Unfortunately the bottom 10 are pretty serious (except #6 - all fiddly little devices require adapting, so adapt), and I could add a few, particularly at $600. I think that the sexy screen, great navigation, well integrated software and eye candy interface will sell millions of devices. However, although Apple is probably going to become a major cellphone player, I don't think this will be as successful as iPod in terms of market share. Not only is the competition better developed, consumer expectations are better set, and locking down service and applications and providing a yesteryear data network won't fly for a lot of people. Things could look up if Apple starts rushing out apps and if second generation handsets support better data networks and have more features.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy20b7pCcrY

[schild]

The negatives far outweigh the positives. Particularly the lack of audio/video on the camera, lack of orientation in email and IM options. I mean, really, no IM options? Half the phones Cingular offers has that. Apple should have taken f'ing notice.

Once again, watching ripped movies is not a feature that replaces BEING A USEFUL COMMUNICATION DEVICE to me.

[Trippy]

#3 on the bad list I believe is wrong. Others have written that you can use a bent paper clip (Apple sure loves bent paper clips) or similar tool to pop the SIM card out of the phone.

#5 is partially wrong. Some headphones will fit in the jack without an adapter -- it depends on the molding where the metal plug meets the plastic molding.

#6 - The keyboard "magnifies" the keys that you press as you type so if you pay attention to that you can see what you are typing.

#7 - What would be really nice is if the keyboard could rotate for those of us with giganto fingers.

[Baldrake]

Let them support Mono and then we'll talk.

[Righ]

Once again, watching ripped movies is not a feature that replaces BEING A USEFUL COMMUNICATION DEVICE to me.

On the other hand, its a sexier paperweight than a PSP.

[bhodi]

My friend got one, I played with it tonight. It's very physically sleek, the google maps thing is AWESOME, onboard speakers are shit, headphone jack was fine for his headphones, the gui is easy to use and fairly intuitive, I had no trouble typing, was surprised at the lack of ringtones and IMing. Totally not surprised about the phone being as locked down as humanly possible, based on apple's past performance in that area.

Not even close to the price point I'd consider paying for the functionality it offers. It's a nice toy, and the early adopters get fucked because next year at this time round 2 will be out the door with all the fixes and 3g connectivity.

[Chimpy]

In 'defense' of the product:

From everything I have heard/read, most of the feature issues people keep going on and on about (IM support, music ringtones, voice dialing to a lesser extent) are all things Apple can wrap into a software update. They may even have those things in development but did not package them into the first batch due to quality concerns as they wanted what they did release to be polished. Apple did make a lot of "available at launch" comments about features on the device at WWDC, so who knows what they have planned in the next couple of months.


That being said, I have no desire to own one. Especially since it requires one to sign a contract with the devil SBC AT&T.

[schild]

In defense?

Fuck this phone. No way to save pictures from the web. Been playing with it for a few minutes now, it's missing too much obvious to be purchased this gen - especially with AT&T branded shackles.

Edit: Chimpy, all of the stuff you said and what I said above should have been in at launch, really no excuse, it's not like it's Bleeding Edge Shit.

[Engels]

I presume folks have seen this?

[bhodi]

iPhone is SO getting lumped in with the wii in schild's head. I can hear them playing racquetball in the little worthless cube-room already.

[Righ]

the google maps thing is AWESOME

Is it more awesome than the Google Maps that I have on my Blackberry? Not being an ass, just wondering what else it brings to the application. Better integration? I would imagine if work hadn't cheaped out on me and had instead got me a Blackberry 8800 with its built in GPS, that would be the ultimate phone for maps.

[Chimpy]

iPhone is SO getting lumped in with the wii in schild's head. I can hear them playing racquetball in the little worthless cube-room already.

Heh, I have come to the conclusion that regardless of what was included at launch, schild would still hate it simply because it comes from Apple.

Which is his right. Just like it is my right to take his rants with a grain of salt.

[Engels]

Well, teh future is here!

[schild]

iPhone is SO getting lumped in with the wii in schild's head. I can hear them playing racquetball in the little worthless cube-room already.

Heh, I have come to the conclusion that regardless of what was included at launch, schild would still hate it simply because it comes from Apple.

Which is his right. Just like it is my right to take his rants with a grain of salt.

Hey now, I bought an iPod when it launched. Nintendo is and isn't Apple. While Nintendo is Thinking Different, they're doing it for the Sake of Thinking Different because they can't afford to keep up with Sony and Microsoft. Apple on the other hand Thinks Different Because It's supposed to be cool. And you know what, when they brought out the iPod and the original iMac, it was. It was cool as a motherfucker. Hell, I even bought the G3 Powerbook when they came out. iPhone has none of that appeal to me. All I ask of my next phone is keyboard and IM capability. I get a phone that can do neither, but boy can it Youtube. Nigga, please. Also, it - without question - costs more than a PS3 over time. And people say the PS3 isn't a good value. Hhurhurhurhruhruhrurhurhurhruhrurhur.

[bhodi]

Is it more awesome than the Google Maps that I have on my Blackberry? Not being an ass, just wondering what else it brings to the application. Better integration? I would imagine if work hadn't cheaped out on me and had instead got me a Blackberry 8800 with its built in GPS, that would be the ultimate phone for maps.

Probably, yes. The touchpad was pretty much made for google maps; scrolling by dragging a finger and zooming in/out by pinching or splitting with two fingers makes the interface extremely intuitive. I don't know what your blackberry interface is like, but I tried my friend's trio and he had to use scrollbars with the stylus... which sucked. Here's a demo...

[Pococurante]

Hmm.  No comments how the iTunes update is reaming all user regardless of platform.

"I support yer iPhone - ph34r me as I trash your local XML"!

Do not upgrade from 7.2.

[Righ]

Probably, yes. The touchpad was pretty much made for google maps; scrolling by dragging a finger and zooming in/out by pinching or splitting with two fingers makes the interface extremely intuitive. I don't know what your blackberry interface is like, but I tried my friends' trio and he had to use scrollbars with the stylus... which sucked. Here's a demo...

The touchscreen is nice, but there's a bunch of nice touchscreen phones in the wings with the Java needed for a regular Google Maps. On the Blackberry the scroll wheel moves the map up and down... left and right took a few seconds to figure out, scroll wheel and the alt key. Works well, but I'm sure that a touch screen would be fabulous. I still don't understand why they didn't put GPS into the iPhone. Or a useful camera. Seems to me that the techno elite with their iPhones are going to be carting around a lot of other electronics.

I'm not an early adopter when it comes to software updates, even security patches. I like to let the dust settle before pressing the upgrade button. So what XML is 7.3 breaking?

[Pococurante]

If you accept the auto update to 7.3 you'll receive a series of "-50" errors.  Basically the software cannot refresh its local database.  This problem is universal to mac and windows users alike.  The workaround is to roll back.  One can blow away their local database but you lose your ratings and played stats.

Welcome to iPhone. Sucks to be a longterm iTunes customer you.

[pants]

Ever since Apple started 'upgrading' iTunes by removing functionality, I've turned off the auto-updating of iTunes and feel much better for it.  I'm still annoyed I don't have a copy of the version that enabled you to stream music from other iTunes in your same subnet - that was a very nice feature at my old job.

[Righ]

Ever since Apple started 'upgrading' iTunes by removing functionality, I've turned off the auto-updating of iTunes and feel much better for it.  I'm still annoyed I don't have a copy of the version that enabled you to stream music from other iTunes in your same subnet - that was a very nice feature at my old job.

Not sure what you mean, but all recent versions let you "Share my library on my local network" under sharing options, and "Look for shared libraries" in another copy. Might want to check the options setting.

[Furiously]

My memory is a bit fuzzy, didn't the trick involve making a remote connection to your home computer so you could listen to home tracks at work?

[Viin]

Well, teh future is here!

That made me laugh, I might have to see it now.

[pants]

Ever since Apple started 'upgrading' iTunes by removing functionality, I've turned off the auto-updating of iTunes and feel much better for it.  I'm still annoyed I don't have a copy of the version that enabled you to stream music from other iTunes in your same subnet - that was a very nice feature at my old job.

Not sure what you mean, but all recent versions let you "Share my library on my local network" under sharing options, and "Look for shared libraries" in another copy. Might want to check the options setting.

Hmm, I will when I get home.  At one stage it got yanked, I hadn't checked to see if it had been re-inserted.

[Big Gulp]

I'm in the same boat as Schild, I bought the 5th gen iPod video and have no regrets; it's a great piece of hardware.  Nothing else that Apple sells appeals to me, however.  They're just in the business of making things pretty and slapping a huge markup on it.  Come on, $600 (and a shitty lock-in plan through AT&T) for a fucking phone?  And a phone that lacks a whole shitload of functionality?  You people are insane.

[Sky]

If you accept the auto update to 7.3 you'll receive a series of "-50" errors.  Basically the software cannot refresh its local database.  This problem is universal to mac and windows users alike.  The workaround is to roll back.  One can blow away their local database but you lose your ratings and played stats.

Welcome to iPhone. Sucks to be a longterm iTunes customer you.

I updated my mini this morning and it's fine.

The streaming capacity has never been taken out. We all share our libraries here at work, it's one of the best things about our network.

[Righ]

You people are insane.

Much as you might want to perch on that ivory tower lording over the rest of us unclean peons, I don't think anybody here has said that they've bought an iPhone yet.

[schild]

You people are insane.

Much as you might want to perch on that ivory tower lording over the rest of us unclean peons, I don't think anybody here has said that they've bought an iPhone yet.

[Yoru]

A couple people here picked them up over the weekend. They're nice phones, sure, but they're not the robot zombie Jesus.

I'm a late adopter and a cheap bastard anyway. Call me when they're $100 or less and have a week of battery life. (Yes, I really do get 5-7 days between charges on my free little shitphone. :) )

[Trippy]

Played with one for about 40 minutes in one of my local Apple Stores until they (nicely) started kicking us stragglers out. Some first impressions:

The keyboard sucks for somebody as fat fingered as I am. The landscape keyboard is not bad but that one only works in Safari.

There's no period on the keyboard "alpha" layout which makes typing in URLs somewhat painful, though there is a ".com" key when you are entering in URLs in Safari. Actually the URL key layout does have a period but the regular layout does not.

The whole portrait/landscape mode switching takes a lot longer than some of the initial videos made it out to be.

Landscape mode is not supported in apps where it should be like Mail.

Scrolling around in Safari is painful because of the constant "checkerboarding". Safari can't keep in the entire rendered page in memory so as you scroll around it has to fetch the new portion of the page from wherever and there's a painful delay while it does that. If you've scrolled quickly in Google maps it's like that.

Clicking on smushed together links in Safari is painful. You are constantly having to zoom in to select a link and then zoom back out to minimize the amount of the above checkerboarding. E.g. Surfing these forums was painful because the page number links and the subforum links are so close together and the pages are quite long "vertically" entailing a lot of scrolling with its subsequent checkboarding.

Clicking on things is sometimes very inaccurate. Some icons and whatnot I have to push multiple times to get it to register even when sometimes it'll highlight that I pressed it. Note I'm not talking about the delays certain ops have that then cause subsequent presses to "lag". E.g. it was having trouble registering that I was trying to click on the far left phone icon. If you watch the Engadget long intro video you can see many examples of this problem.

Google maps was tough to use for me. It was constantly trying to zoom in when I was just trying to scroll around.

The fucking on/off "sliders" need to die die die. Another example of Apple's fucking change to style over substance in their UI design. There's no way to tell from looking at the icon which way you are supposed to slide that thing to switch from on to off or vice versa.

I had trouble getting it into "Cover Flow" mode when playing around with the iPod features. You would think that anytime you rotated it would do it for you but apparently it had to be in some sort of mode first otherwise it wouldn't switch.

Doesn't come with any even simple games on it. I know Apple been anti-gaming since the Mac but come on.

The camera is too simplistic -- there's just one button to take a picture. No setting or other controls.

It would be much easier to use if it optionally supported a stylus, though apparently the touch screen can't handle one.

Needs more apps. E.g. it doesn't even have a todo list app (or maybe it was buried somewhere in the Calendar app). IM of course is a huge missing feature, though that doesn't bother me personally since I hate IM.

The iPhone is much thinner than I thought it would be and feels very nice in the hand. Another Apple miniaturization marvel.

Screen is very nice as well though I don't know how readable it would be in direct sunlight.

I didn't have time to try surfing over EDGE. I'll give that a try next time I'm in the store.

Edit: fixed key layout item