BlackBerry Cool

Not sure how I enter – hope it’s by responding!

I think we’ll see a lot of new phones in glossy black cases with big touch screens and flashy icon interfaces – they’ll look like the iphone, but won’t have any of the slick integration so they will be a pain to use. However they’ll be cheaper, include poor implementations of technologies missing from the iphone (3G, FM radio) and will have about 15mins battery life. Consumers won’t understand the difference in the interface, will buy the cheap copies by the bucketload leaving the true iphone as a niche device used by graphics professionals and web designers.

Great site, have a good weekend!! Rog.

Not this year, nor the next.

The ipod affected the industry when they had their 4th gen ipod. It was then when everybody and their mother wanted one. It was then when they introduced the ipod mini.

The first iphone is going to suck. It’s going to have major problems. The second one will be better, and the third one will be better still. When the 4th gen iphone comes out, and then other models of the iphone appear for the cheaper users… -that- is when the iphone will rock.

The first iphones cannot purchase songs from itunes, and that is going to be an incredible selling point when it happens, and I believe it will happen in their 4th generation of iphones.

The battery life will suck for the first iphones. The touchscreen will wear out after 6 months of use. The receiption will interfere with your white ipod earphones, and you’ll be disappointed with your shiny new toy. And when it gets wet it will blow up in fire and brimstone.

Have patience, and wait it out. Purchase the new BlackBerry 8800 and get a 2 gig microSD memory card and put your music on that. Transfer the music and video from your computer to your BlackBerry, and then when the major bugs have been settled with the iphone after 2 years, and dropped $200 bucks, purchase it and enjoy it then.

we really do not see any real innovation here in this product. However, apple is the first to put these crackerjack technologies into a cingular(lol) device. It reminds me of the the homer simpson car of the future…

I got no beef with the iphone, i can’t wait to try it in the store… but if it appears to be to large to fit into a normal pocket, apple will have some problems….

having osx and a full size web-browser on the device sounds very attractive.. but could also be a minus… i find myself using rss and ad blockers to get rid of the crap of the internet… are you going to have to load an ad-blocker on the iphone?

what crackerjack technologies is it missing?
-irblaster for universal remote capabilites… would be a great remote for a home theater/network setup.
-iptv or tv in general..

The battery life is going to be crucial, if users can only get 4-6 hours of juice… then snap on batteries will have to be made and bought… kinda like the piggy backed star-tac batteries.

I also think by june we will see similar devices. The first thing that everyone will steal is the gyro…

you think ps3 mugging and murdering is so bad…. i would be afraid to take the iphone out on a nyc subway or path train.

The iPhone will essentially change the way we look at phones. Currently cellphones are what they seem like, phones that help us make phone calls when we are out and about. One may say that phones these days are far more though. Phones have MP3 players, organizers, e-mail, web browsers, and the ability to do anything you would if you had a large computer.

I have owned many of these jack-of-all-trades phones (currently the blackjack). I hand someone my phone and they can barely understand how to make calls on it. Syncing is not the simplest thing, and is not meant to be multi-platform (just Windows).

It is easy to brush this off and say, “Well a jack of all trades phone isn’t for everyone”. Apple’s iPhone is ditching this concept and instead stating that a consumer’s cellphone should have more and better functions. To Apple you should be able to pick up a phone and know how to use all its functions, no matter how unfamiliar you are with the phone.

In the computing world, there is a big OS battle: Mac vs. Microsoft. Look at the development of that battle. Apple unveiled the iPod and that led to an interest in their computers. People began to try the OS and notice its extremely simple and friendly UI. While Mac OS X doesn’t have nearly the amount of compatible programs, the average consumer liked that they were able to understand how to get more out of the Apple platform than Windows. Keep in mind that just because you can get more out of a computer doesn’t mean that the computer can DO more.

Now let’s take a look at the world of phones. There are dozens of OSes or UIs for phones. However, let us focus on just the Blackberry, Palm, and Windows platforms. These phones tend to incorporate many functions that we all know. However, for the normal consumer, they are a) too buggy or b) too difficult to understand to use.

The iPhone changes how UIs and OSes will be developed. For years, Phones have gotten to be more and more stylish and compact. Look at how ugly the first cellphone was. It was a gray monstrosity. The iPhone follows the fusion of style into electronics. Sure the touch screen was a development, but the real development is making a cellphone more than a poor recreation of an MP3 player or even an email client.

If Motorola thinks that their typical UI will be successful after this phone, think again. If the Windows Mobile Smartphone software plans to exist for a lot longer, they better change it all up.

Like I said, Apple has redesigned hardware to an extent that will change how things look, but they have changed how easy it is to work your future cellphones. Think OS X vs. Vista, but in the cellphone game.

Coming to a wireless provider near you, the mobile OS war….

The iPhone will essentially change the way we look at phones. Currently cellphones are what they seem like, phones that help us make phone calls when we are out and about. One may say that phones these days are far more though. Phones have MP3 players, organizers, e-mail, web browsers, and the ability to do anything you would if you had a large computer.

I have owned many of these jack-of-all-trades phones (currently the blackjack). I hand someone my phone and they can barely understand how to make calls on it. Syncing is not the simplest thing, and is not meant to be multi-platform (just Windows).

It is easy to brush this off and say, “Well a jack of all trades phone isn’t for everyone”. Apple’s iPhone is ditching this concept and instead stating that a consumer’s cellphone should have more and better functions. To Apple you should be able to pick up a phone and know how to use all its functions, no matter how unfamiliar you are with the phone.

In the computing world, there is a big OS battle: Mac vs. Microsoft. Look at the development of that battle. Apple unveiled the iPod and that led to an interest in their computers. People began to try the OS and notice its extremely simple and friendly UI. While Mac OS X doesn’t have nearly the amount of compatible programs, the average consumer liked that they were able to understand how to get more out of the Apple platform than Windows. Keep in mind that just because you can get more out of a computer doesn’t mean that the computer can DO more.

Now let’s take a look at the world of phones. There are dozens of OSes or UIs for phones. However, let us focus on just the Blackberry, Palm, and Windows platforms. These phones tend to incorporate many functions that we all know. However, for the normal consumer, they are a) too buggy or b) too difficult to understand to use.

The iPhone changes how UIs and OSes will be developed. For years, Phones have gotten to be more and more stylish and compact. Look at how ugly the first cellphone was. It was a gray monstrosity. The iPhone follows the fusion of style into electronics. Sure the touch screen was a development, but the real development is making a cellphone more than a poor recreation of an MP3 player or even an email client.

If Motorola thinks that their typical UI will be successful after this phone, think again. If the Windows Mobile Smartphone software plans to exist for a lot longer, they better change it all up.

Like I said, Apple has redesigned hardware to an extent that will change how things look, but they have changed how easy it is to work your future cellphones. Think OS X vs. Vista, but in the cellphone game.

Coming to a wireless provider near you, the mobile OS war….

Apple has definitely raised the bar a few notches with the iPhone, but the real question is, can they deliver? The folks at 1 Infinite Loop have always been innovators, pushing the envelope and dragging the rest of the industry(s) with them, kicking and screaming at times, but forward none the less. Personally, I worry that the first generation iPhone, like almost all first gen products lately, will have some kinks. Maybe serious ones. It’s not enough to announce a ground-breaker device, you have to deliver one that works as advertised. Since it won’t even ship until the summer I’d say the jury is out on the iPhone, and will remain so until we can get out sweaty mitts on one.

Another concern is that with a nearly 5 month lag time until we see the product in consumers’ hands, will other manufacturers copy some of the features and get a working phone out the door before the iPhone hits the streets? Things can move pretty fast in the mobile phone industry, and giving the compteition so much time to copy might be a bad idea. Perhaps a MacWorld Boston announcement would have been more prudent: “Announcing the iPhone, available NOW!”

The iPhone fundamentally changes the way every mobile phone maker will develop their products going forward. It has to, or Apple will blow them all away as more iPhones come out at lower price points. Whereas every other phone maker accepted the common user interface deciding between a keypad or full qwerty keyboard and adding a d-pad, Apple created a totally new user interface from the start. Once this multi-touch technology was created, it gave them the opportunity to put a huge, seemingly beautiful screen on the device and it opened so many possibilities for intuitive use for music, videos, photos, web surfing, and really any application for digital media.

The real innovation in this device IS the multi touch technology. It allows you to literally grab hold of your media on the phone. Look at how you scroll through contacts, or go through photos, or resize photos with a pinch, or surf the internet and grab parts of the web page and zoom in, or use Google maps, or…well you get the idea. (I highly recommend going to the Apple website and watching the keynote address or downloading the podcast) If you have used two finger scrolling on the macbook pros, then you know what I mean. It feels like you are grabbing the page as you scroll. If in fact this screen proves to be durable, and there is no way of knowing this until time passes with device use, the implications for all of their products is huge. Anyone who says there is no innovation here, including some responders above, absolutely has no idea – not only is multi touch an amazing innovation, but the company filed for over 200 patents in creating this device. If that’s not innovation then what is?

I am an avid Blackberry user, owning them all and currently using a Pearl, and when I saw the keynote address at Macworld it made my Pearl feel like I got it 5 years ago. Yes, you can do everything on the Pearl today that the iPhone will do, but I don’t feel that ease of use and slick interface like the iPhone seems to have. I have never felt like that for any mobile phone and I have owned probably 75 different phones. IPhone changes the game. Apple will incorporate this technology in to all of their iPods and probably come out with a smaller, cheaper version of the iPhone (think Nano sized vs. full video iPod size of iPhone).

Not only does the iPhone change the game for the mobile phone industry, but it also has large implications in the handheld/laptop computer market. It seems quite feasible that they may also come out with a small tablet computer utilizing the multi touch technology. Imagine they then loaded it with Leopard, Apple’s new operating system, and what if Leapard allowed for full integration of Windows APIs. A long shot yes, but it would have devastating effects on Windows market share. I would happily give up my macbook pro for a small tablet with some kind of dock and external monitor with or without the above mentioned Windows APIs.

Last, there is one issue that needs to be addressed – and that is that the iPhone that was announced this week may not be the final version. Maybe they add 3G capabilities, or actually do have the mobile iTunes Store application with over the air downloads in the works. It is absolutely ridiculous that some people and even some journalists have made predictions and given strong opinions of this device without getting the chance to fully use the commercial version of the device, not some prototype 6 months before release. So to complain iPhone does or does not have some functionality is nonsense until me or you can walk into a store and actually have the opportunity to buy one.

The game has changed. Motorola, Nokia, Palm, and even my beloved RIM (for only the consumer side of the biz really, the enterprise/gov biz will continue to be dominated by the Blackberry) better wake up or a large part of the consumer market will be handed over to Apple with this phone and more so, future iterations and the also rans will be left fighting over selling $50-100 flip phones with razr thin margins. WORD.

My armchair analysis of the “iPhone effect” is that for the short to medium term it will result in very little change for the wireless industry. This is based on my guess that for all of the buzz and glory of what by all means looks like a great toy, the masses will not part with the $499 up front and the $115+/mo (data+sms+voice) to use the device.

Early adopters and/or apple zealots will of course snap up as many of these as can be provided to the market initially (incurring cancellation fees, and switching to what may be a less than optimal carrier depending on where they live) – further creating buzz.

But once the dust has settled this all adds up to a lot of cost for people, some of whom already may have a ipods and smartphone or the hard-to-beat-as-a-single-use-device RAZR. Or some who have never had a heavy-duty data plan before. (even though they may be heavy SMS users or ipod owners)

Let’s go to Jobs keynote for his description the value proposition. (i.e. $199 ipod + 299 smartphone = iphone $499.)

I would guess that a great deal of the $299 smartphone market are business users who connect to corporate email servers or at least sync with (and have redirected) from true office collaboration software such as outlook notes etc. At this point apple is not suggesting any significant connectivity for those people.

The most popular ipods have consistently been the less expensive models, with Jobs himself mentioning the $199 model as the best seller.

So mainstream business users are out for the most part and the ipod masses who are appear to be price sensitive as indicated by the weighting towards the less expensive models are out for now too.

I don’t discount the technological achievement, but this actually leads me to further support for why I don’t think the iphone will make a huge impact on wireless for now.

I believe the reason that apple announced the iphone/widescreen ipod as a joint device because it perpetuated the idea that this Corporation can do anything it wants to – on the heels of keynote after keynote of jaw dropping announcments (e.g. the Intel switch). The stock price responded accordingly.

What will result from this is not people en masse canceling existing cellphone service, throwing away perfectly good gadgets and forking over the bucks, but it will result in an ipod that actually works as a usually video device. – evolution not revolution.

The true widescreen video ipod comes out (which everyone is expecting i.e. an iphone without the phone part) and suddenly the much less mature market for portable video entertainment grows and along with apple TV and the iTMS there is a device that makes people justify to begin to purchase more and more content from apple.

PS

From what I understand Jobs did mention Exchange support in his keynote but from my understanding it was only Exchange support via pop or IMAP.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/internet/ doesn’t mention any direct Exchange support.

Also I failed to mention in my previous post a story that to me illustrates the shock at the cost of a new data plan. I had a secretary buy herself a Motorola Q, which she promptly returned upon discovering she had to pay $45/month for unlimited data alone.

I know some old data plans were cheaper than this, but new unlimited data plans from cingular are in the $40-45 range. No reason to suppose they are going to be less expensive in June.

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