Erk, what the heck happened to my thread title?
Must be that (not so) "smart" autocomplete extension I was playing with.
Oh well, may it be known that my thread title was originally not meant to be that pointy or stupid, and that it is actually the fault of a berserk computer program.
A Zune, eh? I haven't actually heard much bad about that thing; just a lot of people saying how "it should be bad!".
How is it working for you?
Jobs' Apple keynote:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/live-from-macworld-2007-steve-jobs-keynote/Pointless of me to link that, of course, since if you care you probably know and if you are sensible enough to not care, then... not much point.
Sounds like the iPhone is doing a lot of stuff. I fear an incredibly big price tag, considering that just a conventional iPod video is already expensive. An iPod with a much bigger screen, a touch interface /and/ phone/Internet capabilities will undoubtedly cost a crazy amount, not to mention the phone bills!
Of course, if they simply referred to the thing a PDA / Pocket PC sort of device (or some such more trendy term) which is what it should be (the phone part is the least of this thing!), they'd probably be doing themselves a favour.
I question a few components of this keynote, because as always it sounds like Apple invented everything:
-Buttons replaced with a touch screen has been done for a long time. Good of them to grasp the idea and move it to an MP3 player / phone, and it is definitely an uncommon sight for some reason, but it really sounds like they invented the idea.
-Did Apple really invent multi-touch? I guess it is possible, but it seems not... They
definitely did not invent the mouse!
-Safari? SAFARI?! GAAAH! I know they really don't have much choice, but they could at least admit it is not the best web browser out there. Even Firefox runs better than that thing on an older iBook. (And when you consider that Safari was built for Macs...)
Away from the bads again:
-No stylus and a really high-res screen. (Take note, Nintendo, unlearning sellers of screens that have cheese-like consistency).
-Mmmm, big screen... doesn't look stupid...
-Sensors as always being used properly. (And actually used). As always, very well thought out on the design front.
-I like how the phone doesn't seem to have a stupid camera. Thank you, Apple, for not buying in to that ridiculous (and VERY ANNOYING) camera phone hype. I've had cell phones pointed at my face for the last time!
Ifs:
-I wonder about how this syncing will work. If they can admit that the thing is a PDA and not a phone, maybe they'll also have the guts to make it not require a very special program (and encryption from hell) to synchronize. I will consider the thing very viable if, and only if, they are to make it synchronize really
really easily. (*Cough* Linux drivers).
-Hoping they have Messag-Ease keypads as well as qwerty. The QWERTY design is useless on touch screens, while Messag-Ease is built for the things!
Anyway, awesome stuff. Good to see all those rumours wrong (since they all assumed iPhone, the next iPod, etc. to be different) and all the focus put into one really nice device.
Edit:
$500-$600 US price apparently. Bad price. It's a well-designed PDA, but good design also means good price. I can get a full desktop PC for that price. An iPhone may include well designed software and highly specific, special hardware but a price like that is insane!
Big focus on the phone aspect there with Cingular as their partner. The cell phone part integrates really well, but what about the seemless WiFi? What about the photo stuff? What about the music stuff? Seems their wasting that other functionality by effectively selling it as a cell phone. There are only so many potential buyers there, and it's not nearly as much an impulse thing...
The patenting thing. I fear Jobs' saying "mutli-finger gestures, and BOY have we patented it!".
Now, I'm all for patenting stuff, but since multi-touch was probably not invented by Apple (and it's worth noting that a reason why we're seeing touch sensitivity so much at this point is because the patents are all expired), I find it very Microsoftish of them to go about patenting mutli-touch interface stuff such as multi-fingered gestures which I assume is what Jobs means by "and boy have we patented it!".
In fact, a few overlaps:
-What ever became of that other iPhone product line from Cisco?
-If Apple has in fact patented multi-finger gestures such as moving fingers together to zoom images, what are they going to do about how practically the first multi-touch interface demo out there demonstrated such a thing? (And it was not done by Apple). I know very little about patent law, but it seems to me that patenting something which has already clearly been done elsewhere is not possible.
Besides, if Apple has patented multi-touch interface stuff, even if they have achieved it in a fair manner... doesn't that suck them down to the same level as Microsoft's various ridiculous interface patents?
Interesting quote from Wikipedia:
An ergonomic problem of touchscreens is their stress on human fingers when used for more than a few minutes at a time, since significant pressure is required and the screen is non-flexible. The resulting condition is labeled "gorilla arm" because it makes the user feel clumsy. This can be alleviated with the use of a pen or other device to add leverage, but the introduction of such items can sometimes be problematic depending on the desired use case.
Having two fingers going at it can probably help, but it seems to me that this explains the existence of the stylus and brings to question: Has Apple addressed long-term use of things like the keyboard? It makes sense why this would happen, because tapping at a touch screen is a lot like tapping at a table. It doesn't feel like you are doing anything, and the surface is hard!
Again: Message-Ease keyboards FTW!
As for drive space (wow this post is a garbled mess!), I think that can be remedied if, and only if, they include easy streaming Internet Radio. iTunes could handle that sort of stuff to keep track of channels (with some ad-supported channels as a free offer to drive up interest, perhaps?), and if the iPhone will run iTunes (which I assume it can! Otherwise, I have lost all interest) then it could be made quite cool.
Internet radio via either cell-provider Internet or the seemless WiFi, thus making it perhaps nearly as viable as simply downloading. (And if iTunes /does/ run on the phone... downloading music from your library on the go, perhaps? Although then comes the fees from Cingular and the sad fact that this is a bloody expensive device, half of whose functionality can be done by a hacked Nintendo DS anyway).
Edit:
Oh crap I just realized!
If the trend of "We invented the mouse!" keeps up, 2 years from now Apple will be saying "We invented the touch screen and portable organizers!".
Fear for your lives, inventors; you'll have a hoard of angry Apple followers charging at you any minute now, demanding that you stop "lying" -- for only the Steve could possibly have invented user input.