iPhone 5 Coming Out: What are Your Thoughts?

smartphone OS debates: almost like religious debates or Mac vs. PC

^^
Wow! This has turned into a debate about mobile phone operating systems. Maybe we should take it to a new thread.

(As someone who has an iPhone 4 and LIKES it, had an iPhone 3G, but also had an older Android phone, played w/some faster Android phones, has experience w/WP7 and had some older Windows CE devices, dating back to Pocket PC 2000... I am a PC guy, BTW and used to test PC and mobile software for a living... but did test Mac software for 4 years too.)

Yes, the iPhones have been behind the cutting/bleeding edge in a variety of technologies (3G, no MMS initially, late to video capture, etc.) for numerous reasons, right or wrong. Yes, I too was puzzled by the 1st gen iPhone running on EDGE at best when there were plenty of 3G phones on the market. I too dislike Apple's disdain for removable batteries, but unfortunately, some other competitors have gone that way on some of their mobile products as well.

Apple's strategy when it comes to features seems to be: they won't ship/include something unless it meets their standard/they think they got it right. They'd rather be behind than ship a feature that's broken, doesn't work well or is clunky. Yes, that means they're often not first.

As for expandable storage on iPhones, that's (right or wrong) what Apple does to charge more/less for a given model. You have to admit that it makes the whole syncing story a whole lot easier (with iTunes) of not having worry about which card is in and WIDELY varying performance characteristics of SD/micro SD cards. Look at WP7 and the debacle people had when trying to swap out micro SD cards of phones where there were slots and how it doesn't support swapping cards.

But, Android and iOS have decimated Windows Mobile's share (which as you correctly state is dead as of 6.5) and now replaced by Windows Phone. Examples of industry stats on this: Nielsen: Android share of U.S. smartphone market hits 43% - Apple 2.0 - Fortune Tech and Changewave: Apple iPhone demand outgrows Android phones in 2011 – MacDailyNews - Welcome Home.

Some of the probs with Windows Mobile were that MS got everyone under the sun to create devices with varying hardware specs (with or without keyboards or other hardware like GPS, different dimensions, etc.) and the level of quality was very inconsistent w/the hardware, drivers (yes, there are drivers on CE), carrier and OEM crapware, device stability, etc. Since the WM became pretty stale and unappealing, all the OEMs were throwing their own shells on top and were sort of forced to since others were doing it. They also wanted to do something to differentiate their own product.

Result: a lot of consumer confusion and just a terrible brand image (WM practically became a non-brand or a detriment).

The iPhone changed the game and got everyone (including) trying to copy them w/the multitouch, pinch and zoom on smartphones, physics when flicking up/down (along w/the bounce), going to capacitive touchscreens instead of resistive, no styluses, really good text input on a touchscreen w/o a stylus and physical keyboard, an elegant UI that required few steps to perform common actions, accelerometer to detect device rotation, great end user experience, etc. Its browser was FAR better than anything else on a smartphone, at the time. One has to admit that the UI on Windows Mobile devices and their apps is just downright clunky compared to iOS. This was all backed up by good marketing and industrial design.

The game really changed w/iOS 2.0 due the app store and the resulting gold rush (Coder’s Half-Million-Dollar Baby Proves iPhone Gold Rush Is Still On | Gadget Lab | Wired.com) and tons of quality and cool apps coming out for iOS. (Yes, there's a LOT of crap too.) How much money could someone writing shareware or commercials apps for smartphones make prior to this? How easy was it for people to locate apps in a central location, pay for the app and install it? If the developer wanted to collect $, he'd have to worry about payments, billing, etc. vs. Apple cutting him a check each month after users tap on Install and type their iTunes store password..

It sparked a huge # of cool and creative apps and got big even game companies involved like Sega and EA. Do you think something like Angry Birds would've ever come to fruition if we were still using smartphones w/resistive touchscreens w/styluses, stylus based UI and no central app store? I've got all sorts of cool, useful and elegant apps like USA Today, Pandora (no, it wasn't first on iPhone), Fotopedia, Shazam, Photoshop Express, etc. that either don't exist on WM or are clunky in comparison.

Was there ever an ad network on WM like http://advertising.apple.com/ (iAd) which enabled developers to get a second revenue stream to allow them to keep providing cheap or free apps? How about an in-app purchases mechanism? The potential for profits is what helps keep the innovation alive there.

Notice every other smartphone platform also has an app store now? (There was even a short lived attempt w/the Windows Marketplace for Mobile.) Notice other smartphones are including front facing cameras, some sort of video chat and sensors like accelerometers, compasses, light sensors and gyroscopes?

Apple also did something good by making firmware updates relatively easy (albeit sometimes slow) via iTunes and providing updates for older iPhones for a little while (supporting at least 1 to 2 generation old phones). On WM, good luck w/official ones from your OEM or carrier. They'll provide them only if they want to. The OEM doesn't want to really provide updates (nor support, test and roll them out) for discontinued hardware when it brings in no revenue. They'd rather sell you new hardware.

For those who have updated iOS on their iDevice, you'll laugh when you see gems like these instructions to update a Samsung Blackjack II to WM 6.1: http://ars.samsung.com/customer/usa...=557&PROD_SUB_ID=558&PROD_ID=957&AT_ID=132707. The real clincher is that after you're done w/the update is that "Any installed programs and/or updates will need to be re-installed after applying this update." Re-installing apps on these devices usually meant running a setup program for each program on your PC w/the device attached via USB.

You're confusing Windows Mobile with Windows CE which is used in all those applications you mentioned. Windows Mobile is a special flavor of Windows CE but with some changes and with and w/o some components. See Integrated Development Environment (IDE) | Windows Embedded CE, bottom of http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/evaluate/what-is-windows-embedded.aspx (regarding the various Embedded versions) and the links at What are the differences between Windows Mobile and Windows Embedded CE?. (WP7 actually runs on top of Windows CE but has a totally different shell.)

FWIW, Microsoft is suing Motorola over alleged Android device patent infringement (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20018305-56.html) and collecting patent royalties from HTC and Samsung Android phones + some other Android OEMs (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2010/apr10/04-27mshtcpr.mspx, http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/analyst-microsoft-gets-5-for-every-htc-android-phone/3393 and http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/microsofts-samsung-android-patent-troll-win/9634). In the case of companies like HTC and Samsung, I guess it's better to come to agreement than to sue your WP7 partners.

 

Nope. You've got it wrong. When I'm traveling I have three devices: My phone, which sits in my backpack and only comes out if I need to make a call; my iPod for music, which is significantly lighter and easier to carry and use on a plane than a phone, which is bulkier; and most importantly, my Kindle, which is approximately seventeen billion times easier to read on than a tiny phone screen.

The phone has a phone book in it.

My address book stays at home. I don't need it when traveling or out and about.

My "appointment calendar" is my wall calendar in my bedroom. It stays in my bedroom.

My camera stays at home and comes out when I need to photograph something. I don't even take it when I travel any more. The travel alarm clock is teeny tiny and travels in my toiletries bag (though the iPod also has an alarm).

For a flashlight I use a headlamp, which gives MUCH more light than a phone, and is hands-free.

The notebook and calculator are both in the iPod.

When I leave the house (not travel) the iPod (and all that other stuff) stay home, and only my phone goes with me, and sits in the car in case I need to make a call. Anybody wants to call me, they can leave a message. I don't answer the phone while driving.

Basically, by separating my music from my phone, I need carry only whichever I want at the time, and both are easier to use separately. And neither is worth a hill of beans for reading a book. And the only thing I give up is being connected to the goddamned internet 24 hours a day 365 days a year.

Yes, some people have a use for a smart phone. I am not one of them.

The poll should have included: "I don't need a smart phone."

 

iphone is one of the products from apple I would never buy. I love my ipod and my Macbook. But the phone is useless to me.

 

As an amateur photographer (who used to develop and print his own B&W photos back in the days) I have come to rely on my iPhone camera for many day-to-day shots. It's not a substitute for a real DSLR, but it's good enough for many point-and-shoot situations. And, if used carefully it still can produce some pretty spectacular results, as long as you know its limits.

I'm using an old 3GS model right now. My wife's iPhone 4 has an even better camera. If the iPhone5's camera is better than the 4, I will consider upgrading.

 

I think it's pretty well agreed the camera will be better, at least in terms of megapixels. Also, the speed bump should be pretty good, especially for graphics, since they'll be moving to the same A5 processor that's in the ipad 2. See here:

An A5 Powered iPhone Will Have Much Faster Graphics Performance (Benchmarks) - Mac Rumors

Personally, I'm likely to wait for the next go update, hopefully with a larger screen, the A6 processor and LTE. Who knows, maybe there'll be a real surprise and that will all show up tomorrow.

 

And that pretty much says it all right there. Coming up next: the Yugo is the king of cars.

 

I'm not one of those fanboys who will rush out and buy the 5 the day it comes out. The main reason I upgraded to 4 is it had a real camera (I'll admit the camera on 3 was crap). But yeah, I'll keep my 4 until it dies.

 

Microsoft just can't work out why their Windows Mobile never took off. Well, I have an idea that the millions of people they frustrate every day with their computer operating systems might just think twice about adding to their hassle by getting Windows on their mobile too!

See, if they'd have asked me I could have saved them a few $million and a fair bit of time.

 

Re: smartphone OS debates: almost like religious debates or Mac vs. PC

That's an excuse for not engineering it in. There wouldn't be patches or hardware fixes (iphone4 reception problems anyone?) if they refused to ship until it was perfect. In that case it wouldn't ship at all. I have some... "insider" type info on a few apple products as I work for a company that designs some of the guts for them, and lets just say this is far from their strategy.

Of course it is easier. Its offloading the burden of support to the user. This is a fundamental company policy of Apple and diametrically opposed to Microsoft. I can hook up my Roland Dot Matrix Printer from the mid 80's to my Windows 7 machine and have it printing in all its loud grinding glory within 5 minutes. The only switch was the pre-NT to NT driver versions and most of that was resolved. You cannot do that with Apple, because they only support the current OS and the things they make for it. It makes their lives a lot easier and makes controlling compatibility easy too. If you only support a small subset of hardware, it is much easier to get working. Microsoft will run on anything and it runs well.

I dont have a WP7 device, but my WM6.5 device that also boots Android and full Ubuntu supports SD card swaps anytime. The only time it does not is when booted into Android or Ubuntu because the images are stored on the SD card. But once I boot into Android, it is loaded into RAM and I can pull the SD card if I want.Not true for Ubuntu though.

And yet overall:



And an article I just read in the July or August PCWorld magazine (which for some reason is generally pro-Apple ) says again that Android reigns supreme. And it lumps "others" like Windows and Symbian into the bottom 11%.

Image has nothing to do with functionality. It may have a bad rep, but thats because people are in general stupid and flock with the masses. Ask someone off the street what they think of Vista. I bet you they will say it sucks. Ask them why? They will have no clue. Ask some random person if an iphone is good, and they will say yes. Ask them why? No clue.

Customizability and the option to run on anything is a feature, not a problem. HTC and their "sense" overlay spruced up the WM image, and I did enjoy using it over the vanilla WM image. But I could still do everything. Form over function is supposed to be a bad thing, somehow it has crept back to being a good thing.

"Everything you can do I can do better" (and earlier) on a non-ios phone. My HTC had front facing cameras and back facing cameras. They did not import them to the US because the US market never heard of it and wouldn't pay for it because the infrastructure here sucks. The rest of the world has had it for a long time.

The Microsoft "smart house" had pinch to zoom, physics based screens and everything else. Apple wasn't the first, they just shouted the loudest.

The browser was better? How so? The opera-esque browser built into HTC WM phones was worlds above. It also did the autoscale and rearrangement of tabs. Not to mention you could override the html headers and spoof a full browser to sites that gave you only the mobile version and no way to get the full version. And no one has brought up flash compatibility yet...

The app store was a novel idea and a great one from Apple. However, I never had trouble finding apps for my windows mobile phones. I searched google for what I wanted and downloaded it. Pure and simple. I don't see this as being that much harder then searching an app store for the correct app. It makes it easier for the masses, but it is playing down to people not forcing them to evolve. That's why the iphone is great for those who are technologically inept. It does a small subset of what the better phones do in an easier way. If you cannot task your pretty little head into learning the ways of the new world, then so be it. Buy an Apple product.

HTC has support for older phones. And as someone who cooks ROMs for other devices, you are blowing updates waaaaaay out of proportion. The new ROMs lock your installed programs, contacts, call logs, sms/mms, and all settings to an external file (like on the SD card or a PC), install the new ROM, then reinstall all your apps. You press a couple buttons and you are done.

So Apple doesn't have update issues? What about all the users that bricked their phones with the 3 to 3.1 update? I would rather reinstall programs then have a shiny new paperweight... Updates to the kernel are never easy. Especially if you need to be running what you are updating. That is a resource management nightmare. But all the OSs do it, and some devices are harder than others.

Yes but drivers and applications compiled for CE do run on Windows Mobile. It is more of a subset of CE than a difference.

Yes and Apple is suing HTC, and HTC is suing Apple, and Via (who's CEO is married to HTC's CEO lol) is suing Apple, and Nokia is suing Apple and HTC, Samsung is suing Apple, and Apple is suing Samsung, and Microsoft is suing... well you get they picture. They are all suing eachother. You must protect your patent for you to maintain your patent in many countries. So they are all doing what they need to do. Usually they are all thrown out of court. Sometimes each side wins a victory that would cripple each other, so they make an arrangement that we will charge you $X to use this patent and we will also conveniently pay you $X to use your patent. It is a big game, and has been going on longer than Apple has been making dumbphones.

 

See there you go again, stop using the iphone and you'll realize that Prius is the king of cars.

 

You also think the Prius is the iPhone of cars? You see? We agree on something!

 

First thought when seeing the headline:
Hey, if the iPhone is gay, I'm not going to pass judgement on it. What's important is if it's happy.

Yep. That was my thought. You can spout all the goobly-gook you want, but windows mobile or windows CE is not a RTOS and never will be. It might work for some phone applications, but trying to sell it as an end-all and be-all is a failure from the start. Of course, Linux and iOS isn't designed for everything under the sun either, but it's a lot easier on 3rd party developers than the Windows route.

To the original topic:
I'm not switching networks, so I can't get the iPhone. But I like Apple products (I still have my Apple //c from the early days, and a Mac Classic, etc), so I can't answer the poll. That's okay. I have an Android phone which is pretty cool except Google munged things up terribly and it took me a couple months just to download a single app (permissions problems with the google account I was forced to have, then you have clear various caches and reboot the phone at the right time or something). I still can't download a paid app, that takes another step, so I'm not going to bother. You have to wonder how many sales the app developers have lost because of Google's unwillingness to help consumers.

I have my iPad or my son's iPod touch if I want to bring along games. I did get My Tracks app (free) which useful and semi-functional. So my phone is weather resistant, has GPS based maps, a respectable camera, texting (swype is cool), and the regular phone capability. That's all I need, and I'll keep it, lack of apps and all, until my wife decides I need something new (after a couple months of my protesting I don't).

Now Tony - it's no guarantee that the iPhone 5 will even be announced at the Apple event, even though rumors are pretty strongly leaning that way. Aren't you going to be a bit embarrassed to be sleeping in front of the Apple store for the iPhone 5 if there is no such thing?

 

I've already said that I don't need a smart phone. But if I did, I certainly would not get one that ran a Microsoft operating system. Installing a MS operating system on anything is like installing a toilet that flushes up into your house instead of down into the sewer.

Prius is not the King of Cars. Tesla is the King of Cars! Prius is yesterday's car.

 

If they'd just get rid of all those heavy batteries in the little Tesla, it'd be a great handling car.

Oh, wait, that's already been done.



When the iPhone has a screen that rolls out like a window shade for viewing, and in for storage, that's when I'll get excited. 'Till then, it's a good product, but why folks are gaga over it I have no idea.

For me, the attached is the king of cars. But, to each his own!

 

I would even be satisfied with a Factory Five replica.

 

Re: smartphone OS debates: almost like religious debates or Mac vs. PC

I find it funny that two people on here are defending failed products that are now dead and abandoned by MS since they've now moved onto WP7.x. Windows Mobile was in better shape (prior to iPhone 3G and Android) vs. the competition in the past and used to have a strong growth trajectory

Apple did nothing to fix/change iPhone 4 "reception problems". They gave free cases to earlier buyers (I got one of those). Antenna attenuation by blocking antennas isn't specific to the iPhone 4, but unfortunately, Apple sure made it easy to figure out how to do it.

It was more in reference to Apple not including features until they feel it's ready vs. other companies who would just rather throw in features as marketing bullet points regardless of what shape the features were in and the end to end user experience. But yes, iPhones had a glaring (and curious lack) of omissions of certain features. I too questioned the 1st gen iPhone: EDGE only? no MMS? no ability to set custom ringtones? no SDK so no 3rd party apps, huh?

And what's the value to the majority of smartphone users of booting into other OSes supported by community of tinkerers?

Yep, by most accounts, Android has pulled ahead of iOS in share.

I gave some points that led to its terrible image. I can give you some inside info (not publicly) about this.

Really? I've met cproaudio once before but didn't realize he was a WinMo enthusiast/fanboy. If either of you ever end up in my area and we both still use our respective platforms, I'll be glad to show you why I think you're wrong. Video chat on smartphones definitely was not pioneered by Apple. As your HTC phone, well, that made it pretty useless didn't it? There was almost nobody to video chat with. Facetime, as implemented (which I admittedly don't use much) makes it SUPER easy to Facetime w/another iPhone 4 user (no need to muck w/accounts or anything), but unfortunately only works over wi-fi.

As for "smart house", you're referring the Surface table that had been in development for a many years. Their implementation is totally different and based on cameras, not capacitive touchscreens. That can't camera system can't be scaled down into smartphones. MS shipped smartphones w/similar gestures and capacitive touchscreens starting w/WP7.

As for apps for your phone, there's no unified central place. In some cases for yours, you have to run a setup program on your PC while the device is attached and can't necessarily do it on the fly. There's no unified ratings system nor place for people to provide/read reviews. There's no curration or anyone that ensures the quality of the apps. There's no unified payment system and due to fragmentation and everything being scattered, you can bet those developers didn't make much $. If it's a paid app on your device, how are you going to buy and pay for it? Muck w/Paypal or some other alien payment system or send the guy a check/money order? It's a lot more work for the developer and user as well as potentially big headache if the customer and developer are in different co. Some developers for Android and iOS have made a ton of $, which is virtuous cycle that gives them the incentive to improve their apps and write new ones.

Did WM ever have any unified mechanism by which crash reports from 3rd party apps ever made it back to the developers and in a usable form? Helps to have those so that devs can target fixing bugs that are the most commonly hit. You also have no unified mechanism for updating. I can just tap Update All and type my iTunes store password and every new app that has a newer version is updated.

Ok... well, no or virtually no phones could be upgraded from WM6.x to WP7.

Here was an official story updates to WP6: Windows Mobile 6 Upgrades for your phone - GerardoDada - Site Home - MSDN Blogs.

Here's the story about updates to WM6.5: Updating Windows Mobile Phones to Version 6.5 | Windows Mobile

Regarding the patent disputes, yes, it's been getting ugly w/everyone suing each other. My examples were in response to "Apple, STOP LITIGATE, INNOVATE!!" Apple has done plenty of innovation, even if some of it just democratizing some features, technologies or and scenarios by making them accessible, discoverable, w/a good end to end user experience, adding enough polish, and advertising/marketing of it.

I'm unaware of widespread issues going from iOS 3 to 3.1. I personally updated my former iPhone 3G from what it shipped with (I believe 2.1) to every version listed at iOS version history - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that was applicable to that device but stopped before 4.0 due to widespread reports of it being a TERRIBLE experience (and then I sold the 3G when I received my 4 for ~$160). My iPhone 4 has gone thru every applicable version from 4.0 to 4.3.5. I've never bricked my phone or had trouble w/the update process nor had a phone that was unusable after updating. iPhones have some recovery modes too.

 

The Tesla is a great handling car! The Porsche handles better. But it would be damned hard to beat Porsche for handling. As for the batteries in the Tesla, that's what makes it able to drive 245 miles without paying the terrorism tax on gasoline to al Qaeda.

What's the car in your picture? I know extremely little about sports cars. The only reason I own a sports car is because it's electric and Nissan kept screwing up my Leaf order and I got sick of waiting for a crap company to deign to notice me.

 

Both my wife and I had the original iphone and loved it. Both our phones had problems after about 3 years - my home button stopped working and her glass and screen were badly cracked. We wound up switching to Sprint - she got a Blackberry and I got an Evo and we both are pretty happy with the phones.

The big + though is Sprint. They are far less expensive than AT&T was - at the same time we got phones and new service for our 2 daughters and the overall bill was a dollar or two less. The signal strength and call quality on Sprint is quite a bit better than AT&T. My phone has their 4G Wimax but I rarely can get a signal on it even though I live in the Philly suburbs and they show service. Even with 3g the data is fast enough, and without limits I can use a ton of data. When we drive to Cape Cod (about 6 hours) I can turn on wireless tethering on and the girls can each watch streaming netflix videos the whole ride.

The iphone is great, and if it comes to Sprint I might think about it when my Evo bites the dust.

 

iPhone 4S??? Yawn...

 

So so disappointed. For current iPhone4 users, there's no need to upgrade. Just download iOS5 on October 14th and you're set. Another reason I will not get the iPhone. I already hate talking to robots when calling customer service on the phone why would I wanna talk to another robot my phone? Rumor has it early on that 4S will be the cheap iphone and possibly prepaid iphone and the iphone 5 will be the king of all iphones with 4+" screen. tsk tsk bad apple, bad. Just when I thought you can't disappoint me anymore, you go and pull this shit.
Apple has made many poor decisions on the designs and features on the iphones from the beginning which is why I never got into the iphones in the first place. It's great for some people but the features I want was never implemented into the iphone.
The hardware only gets updated once a year. The software also gets updated once a year but minor refresh in between. Most of those refreshes are fixing problems and to combat jailbreakers. That's the problem with the iphone. It's too locked down.
WM on the other hand gets updated hardware with difference designs and functions all the time. It supports pretty much anything. When Nextel needed a smartphone OS to support directconnect WM was there. It also supported the push to talk for AT&T and Verizon. Sure PTT is dead but the button can be programed to do something else within the OS. The OS gets major updates once a year also but the refresh in between is often once a few days with subtle new and improved features and never to combat custom ROM cookers. That is until Microsoft killed it and replaced it with a worthless OS WP7. Had MS continued with WM, the hardware manufacturers would have continued cranking out up to date hardware. The last WM phone before MS killed it was HTC HD2. It had all the features modern phones have including 4.3" capacitive multitouch. I have never encounter any free WM apps with ads. Since MS killed WM, I've jumped ship to Android because it offers the same hardware features and functions as WM. The OS gets frequent update. The ads in free apps is something new I have to deal with now. I'm sure it's the same with free apps on iphones. With Android, almost all the new cutting edge hardware gets implemented into android first before other phones. I love 3D so when LG released the Optimus on AT&T I went to Costco and got it for $70 below what AT&T charges. It came with a case, 2 screen protectors, and a car charger for $29.99 I rooted it the day I got it.
Will my mind change about the iphone? sure, if they change their hardware design to allow hot swapping storage and removable battery and increase the screen size to at least 4" preferably 4.5" or bigger. My 4.3 is starting to look small. Samsung Galaxy Note is 5.3" HD res.iPhone 4S vs Samsung Galaxy Note - Comparison - Know Your Mobile iOS5 I could probably deal with as it's a learning curve. If I ever get an iphone, you can bet that the first thing I'm going to do is jailbreak that mother.