Apple announces Apple TV and iPhone

[schild]

That's pretty much how I felt. I couldn't type shit on that keyboard. It took me about 2 minutes to do the whole alphabet because I kept fucking up.

Also, it's the most featureless web browser I've ever seen. The browser in my Samsung A900 has more features than that thing, it makes no sense to me. I can only assume they designed the software around the hardware instead of the hardware around full-featured software when they designed this thing because it just reeks of missed potential.

But yes, it is gorgeous and every yuppie is going to think it's the best thing since Jesus.

[Righ]

Another Apple miniaturization marvel.

Designed by Ive@Apple, manufactured in miniature by Foxconn. iPod manufacturer Quanta are already working on a 2nd generation iPhone.

[Trippy]

Another Apple miniaturization marvel.

Designed by Ive@Apple, manufactured in miniature by Foxconn. iPod manufacturer Quanta are already working on a 2nd generation iPhone.

Foxconn is denying they are the maufacturer so that part is still a mystery.

[Righ]

Yeah, saw that - probably being literal when they say that - shell games, etc. There's so much stuff out of Hon Hai Precision Co. Ltd. that they have to be the manufacturer. Foxconn is just one of their trade names. So the iPhone isn't manufactured under their trade name.

[Murgos]

I can only assume they designed the software around the hardware instead of the hardware around full-featured software when they designed this thing because it just reeks of missed potential.

Sometimes you say the funniest things.

I will guarantee you that there has never been a piece of hardware designed to support a piece of software.  Software is, exactly and only, the set of instructions used to control a hardware device.  Nothing more.

[Trippy]

I can only assume they designed the software around the hardware instead of the hardware around full-featured software when they designed this thing because it just reeks of missed potential.

Sometimes you say the funniest things.

I will guarantee you that there has never been a piece of hardware designed to support a piece of software.  Software is, exactly and only, the set of instructions used to control a hardware device.  Nothing more.

Huh?

[Murgos]

Developing to an open standard or common interface is not software driving hardware development.

No coder ever said to the hardware guy, I would like opcode 00100110110 to be an indirect memory address pls.

[MrHat]

Developing to an open standard or common interface is not software driving hardware development.

No coder ever said to the hardware guy, I would like opcode 00100110110 to be an indirect memory address pls.

But, if the solution to the problem that the software is be developed to solve requires new hardware to be manufactured, isn't that the same thing?

[Murgos]

Exactly, the problem to be solved drives the hardware development and the hardware development, specifically the features of the hardware, drives the software development.  Chicken and egg.  You cannot have software until you have hardware to run it on.

"Hay guyz!  I wrote this code that will be sooooo awesome once you design a magic thingie to make it work.  Lolz!"

Maybe there is a piece of hardware that through software instructions does a particular calculation and then in a future release of the hardware the decision is made to incorporate that specific data transform directly to speed up the calculation but that is still not software development driving hardware development.

[Engels]

I was under the impression that back in days of yore, the outstanding benefit of Apple was that they did, in fact, closely tie their hardware to their software, making it peform far better than IBM clones because of that design philosophy, and also the reason that Apple's source code was a guarded secret.

[Murgos]

I was under the impression that back in days of yore, the outstanding benefit of Apple was that they did, in fact, closely tie their hardware to their software, making it peform far better than IBM clones because of that design philosophy, and also the reason that Apple's source code was a guarded secret.

Intels IA 32 instruction set is notorious for its CISC heritage.  The whole point of CISC is that software can be written to take advantage of specific hardware instructions thus tightly coupling it to the hardware it is running on.  Apple computers, up until the present used a RISC based architecture, which has the effect of making optimal compilers easier to write which then makes porting software between architectures easier.

Unless I completely misunderstand what you are talking about.

[Righ]

As far as I'm concerned what Apple had by way of advantages was all about the software. In the mid 80s it was because they were the only game in town with a GUI. Then they were the only game in town with a useful GUI. Then they were the only game in town with a GUI that had useful applications. Then they were the only game in town with a GUI and a coherent API. By the mid-90s, they weren't looking so clever though. Windows 95 brought Windows into serious play by finally adding an integrated network stack, cheap and free Unix was around and by this point Apple had procrastinated for so long that their OS was looking pretty archaic, was encumbered with extensions and crashed regularly. The only reason that anybody bought the Apple hardware was to run the Apple software. In fact Bill Gates has said quite openly that if Jobs had licensed Mac OS for use on PC platforms, Microsoft would have left the operating systems game to Apple and would have focused on application software to run on Mac OS.

Today Apple continues to make stylish and well designed hardware, that once again we buy only because we want to run their software. OS X is what I've wanted since Sun Microsystems stopped using SunView for their GUI - a Unix operating system that doesn't have the blight of X11. If another Unix vendor were to dump X11 and produce as good an interface as Aqua/Quartz and then attract a select handful of applications to their platform, they could put a big dent in Apple sales. Not least because nobody really wants their desktop Unix to be running on a crappy old microkernel. Though it might have made it easier to port it to a cell phone. Heh.

(Apple started using RISC in the mid 90s - prior to that they were on the Motorola 68K series of CISC processors).

[Engels]

I was under the impression that back in days of yore, the outstanding benefit of Apple was that they did, in fact, closely tie their hardware to their software, making it peform far better than IBM clones because of that design philosophy, and also the reason that Apple's source code was a guarded secret.

Intels IA 32 instruction set is notorious for its CISC heritage.  The whole point of CISC is that software can be written to take advantage of specific hardware instructions thus tightly coupling it to the hardware it is running on.  Apple computers, up until the present used a RISC based architecture, which has the effect of making optimal compilers easier to write which then makes porting software between architectures easier.

Unless I completely misunderstand what you are talking about.

Yep, that was pretty much what I was talking about.

[Murgos]

The reason why Apple's OS didn't compete with, and destroy, MS's Windows in the late 80's - early 90's is that Apple considered itself to be a hardware manufacturer and not a software company (still does, really).

[Chimpy]

The reason why Apple's OS didn't compete with, and destroy, MS's Windows in the late 80's - early 90's is that Apple considered itself to be a hardware manufacturer and not a software company (still does, really).

They also had a CEO who came from a soda company, and not one who had any experience in a technology firm. Just another fine example of how head-hunting for the "best CEO available" causes all kinds of other problems.

[Righ]

Eh, he did better than the guy Commodore got. :)

[Big Gulp]

Eh, he did better than the guy Commodore got. :)

Which really is a damned shame.  I remember both the Amiga and Atari ST OSes as fantastic; way better than any other OSes out there at the time (Apple's included).  One of my friend's had the Amiga, the other had the ST (being poor, and funding my own computing through the money a kid earns, I had an old C64) and I honestly couldn't say which I liked better.  They were both good at certain things, but they damned sure were better than anything MS or Apple put out there.

[Righ]

The Amiga was brilliant both in hardware and software - including a truly pre-emptive multitasking OS complete with GUI in a few hundred kilobytes of memory. Just astonishing design - I wasn't a big fan of the default command-line interface (I used a Korn shell variant), but the core OS and the glorious Intuition GUI were incredible, and just such an elegant API to program for. I don't think that the ST was really in the same league, certainly with respect to some of the customer graphics chips or the OS (which was DR's GEM). However the inclusion of MIDI on its entry-level models made it an ideal music computer.

[schild]

I've ended up getting the Moto Q. Basically, it's the Samsung Blackjack with Windows Mobile 6 in a super stripped down and fast flavor. Has built in MSN, the texting setup it nice, the browser is quite good (compared to the last browser I messed with...iPhone), and a bevy of other features. It's skinny, feels good. I hate that it doesn't have a volume rocker. I have 30 days to decide if I want to keep it, so I'm going to put this fucker through it's paces.

[Righ]

How much was it? No GPS and a camera from the dark ages. Nice layout & size tho. If you get the 30 day dealie with every phone just keep upgrading every month.

[schild]

can only exchange once in 30 days. GPS programs are in plentiful supply and something I don't give a shit about since you can access google maps. Also don't care about the camera. I cared about IM and Keyboard support. It has both in spades.

[Righ]

GPS programs, but the phone doesn't have an integrated GPS receiver. Unlike this:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/smartphone/details.mspx?id=IDACYUTC&backUrl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.microsoft.com%2fwindowsmobile%2fsmartphone%2fdefault.mspx%3fcurPg%3dAll

Which is okay. There are better GPS phones on the way though.

[schild]

Yea, but that assumes you need GPS at all. I've got google maps on my phone. And I don't mean [access to] the website, I mean the application. There's also a slew of GPS things on the sprint network that simply locate you, and from that location lat/long you can input it into Google. Sure, it's not elegant, but for the ONE TIME I find myself in the middle of the desert with nothing but a bottle of liquor, my cell phone, and pure terror, I think it'll suffice.

[Jeff Kelly]

GPS programs, but the phone doesn't have an integrated GPS receiver. Unlike this:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/smartphone/details.mspx?id=IDACYUTC&backUrl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.microsoft.com%2fwindowsmobile%2fsmartphone%2fdefault.mspx%3fcurPg%3dAll

Which is okay. There are better GPS phones on the way though.

There are no good GPS phones and there most probably never will be. You cannot fit a good GPS Antenna into such a device so all the phones I have tried so far have piss poor GPS reception and need ages to lock onto satellites. And forget about using those phones inside cars.

[Righ]

You can't fit a good GPS antenna into all th Garmin Streetpilot devices that we use either and they take forever to lock onto satellites. And yet they suffice.

[Surlyboi]

seriously, schild... Apple could make the cure for cancer, wrapped up in the slickest package ever and you'd still find some fault in it.

I'm posting this from my iPhone, by the way. And yes the keyboard does take getting used to. But then, you never had any intention of trying it past the point where you could pan it anyway, so enjoy your windows phone.

[Trippy]

How's EDGE?

[schild]

seriously, schild... Apple could make the cure for cancer, wrapped up in the slickest package ever and you'd still find some fault in it.

I'm posting this from my iPhone, by the way. And yes the keyboard does take getting used to. But then, you never had any intention of trying it past the point where you could pan it anyway, so enjoy your windows phone.

Wrong.

I'd buy a cure for cancer.

And I'd have bought an iPhone if it had a proper keyboard and IM... and the ability to change the ringer to an MP3... and wallpaper and layout options...

What you meant to say was "Apple could have made a good phone and you wouldn't have bought it."

You'd have been wrong.

[schild]

How's EDGE?

It's fine. I've been using it for 3 years now (the last 2 years on my A900). If you browse f13, you want to browse it with the following address though, http://www.f13.net/forums/index.php?;wap2

[Chimpy]

Sounds to me like a lot of the "keyboard" hate stuff Apple is dealing with is due to the unusually 'high' learning curve as far as input devices go. Somewhat like IBM had with the track-point in the 1990s. It took a little longer to learn how to use, but once people did learn to use it effectively they either did not mind using it instead of a trackpad, or (like myself) thought it was the next best thing to sliced bread.

[schild]

Or people never learned how to use it and plugged in a mouse. Or used the ever present touchpad.

It's not the learning curve, it's the "making changes where changes need not be made."

[naum]

As much as a Mac fan I am, I have to say that it's truly a joke when a 10 year old device using Palm OS can accomplish a basic UI text entry staple that is CUT AND PASTE is not supported in the glitzy iPhone UI that's heralded… …it might be a wonderous UI, but if it can't do something as simple as CUT AND PASTE, it's a failure IMV…

…not even going to mention the sellout to telcos with the SMS and non-IM client… (oh, wait I did…)

[Surlyboi]

the keyboard is fine after a few hours. Then again, I always hated the tiny keyboards on treks and stuff, anyway.

[Miasma]

I thought this was a very cute review from a non techy.

[Lantyssa]

I thought this was a very cute review from a non techy.

Awesome review.