Hype-Phone
I celebrated the birth of the hyper-pitched Apple iPhone this weekend by rushing out to upgrade my trusty 2 year old Blackberry to the new 8830 global model. It's a humdinger, a third of the the price of the Apple machine, and runs on a (worldwide) network that, consistent with Verizon's PR campaign, really does have awesome and reliable coverage (I think Iv'e dropped less than 3 calls in 2 years with the Blackberry/Verizon combo).
Here's a great piece dinging the iPhone and explaining the weird marriage between the supposedly avant garde Apple hippies and the At&T dinosaurs.
July 1st, 2007 at 7:58 am
The sheep-like response to this and so many of Apple’s products is amazing.
Two things I don’t get:
1.) What is so great about about watching television or a film on a tiny screen?
2.) AT & T has a notoriously slow network. Do they actually expect to get good service from AT & T?
I will concede an advantage to Apple when it comes to computers and operating systems. I think that the Ipod is overrated. I bought a 40GB Creative Zen Touch for about the price of an 8GB Ipod Nano and it’s much better, IMHO.
July 1st, 2007 at 8:13 am
The problem with Ipods is that they don’t play FLAC or SHN files, higher resolution audio than MP3s common in the bootleg community (from the Dead to Flaming Lips to scratchy old out of print jazz records). and also in terms of hooking to stereo amps have to use a Y cable (which messes with the mix) as opposed to a digital or l/r output.. My cheap little Samsung will play dozens of digital audio formats and plays FLAC files, SHNs, etc. uncompressed – but is as small as an IPOD and way way way cheaper.
July 1st, 2007 at 8:57 am
Don’t have an Ipod or anything like it. For cell, I have my trusty Treo 650 which is rugged as hell (I’ve dropped it a number of times with no major damage- YET) and pretty damn good sprint service. Randy, I have a number of friends with other types of music carriers, with higher gb than ipod and they, like you seem perfectly happy with them.
July 1st, 2007 at 10:23 am
I’m not a crackberry addict – really don’t need it nor want it – and the thought of watching videos (or taking pictures for that matter) with my celphone strikes me as preposterous). Apple is so far superior to PCs in the development of their computers it’s really not worth any discussion, but Apple ISN’T as consistently great as its cracked up to be by slavish fans.
Ipods are terrific – Apple pioneered that and they’re the best. But the much-ballyhooed Apple Final Cut Pro video editing software, while bringing the price point of relatively high-end tools down to a degree that was revolutionary – and for this I commend them – can’t compare with the (former) industry standard Avid in speed, design or reliability – no matter what the kid’s ‘ll tell ya. Also, the people who write reference documentation – and even the various professional reference books that sell for around $40-50 and get kudos on Amazon, are either working professionals who don’t know how to write a comprehensive book well or are writers who’ve familiarized themselves with the tech but who don’t get how professionals actually use the tools. I’ve been shocked at stuff, workarounds, etc. – even basics – that I’ve simply had to discover on my own after checking threee or more “guides”, a small library of documentation, and being left to assume that there were inherent bugs in the design (sometimes, of course, there are.) A couple of these issues have been, literally, at the “101″ level. Didn’t have that problem with Avid. That said, Avid needed their monopolistic rug pulled out from under them – it’s just too bad that Apple did it to what I consider a “Microsoft” standard of mediocrity.
Definitely has made me a bit more clear-headed about Apple. Although, anybody who tries to tell you that their computers aren’t significantly superior is flat-out ignorant. (Sort of like the kids who tell me how great FCP is but, it turns out, have never worked on anything else.)
As for cell phones, I had a little Nokia that I loved – had the “green & black” lcd that was all I needed. After a major service issue with Cingular that dragged on to the point of insult, I switched to Verizon in a huff, at considerable expense and loss of “anytime minutes” at the same price point. Had to buy a new Samsung with a color screen and throw away my Nokia. Tried to use the new phone outside and realized that color screens are totally worthless unless you never make calls outside in normal – even shaded – daylight. Went back and was told that there’s no such thing as a black and white screen that you can read in normal daylight available anymore. The tradeoff, I was told by some guy who looke like he just got out of high school – is that I can put a picture of my dog (if I had one) on my phone screen – or tradeup and take pictures with my phone that I can put on Myspace and send to my friends with cute text messages. The celphone market has been taken over by 12-year olds… I hate my phone – because I make lots of calls when I’m in transit on foot, headed for a meeting or lunchbreak, to BART and when I take long walks on weekends. I have to memorize where key numbers fall in patterns that I can barely discern in normal light. Also the time/date dissolves into a Verizon logo and back again, endlessly. Why the hell would I ever need to see their logo more urgently than time of day? Also get a long “trailer-like” full screen logo animation every time I turn the thing on or off. “Cut the crap. I’m paying the bill. Put your ads on TV where they belong!” Hate my phone. Hate the idiots who market this crap. Hate Verizon. Hate Cingular. Hate Samsung. Hate the rest of them who apparently assume I’m one of the dumbest people on the planet…
July 1st, 2007 at 10:33 am
I have to say that my iPod is the Shuffle – which is the perfect on-the-go music companion IMHO. I love it. I don’t like fidgeting with multiple lists, etc. when I’m in transit. Do that at home and fill up my shuffle with what I’ll enjoy for a few days. It’s tiny, cheap, wouldn’t bother me much if I lost it, broke it or it got stolen – which defines what I feel comfortable carrying in my pocket. I doubt that I’ll ever get a mega-gig iPod or anything to watch video on while I’m on the go. My iBook is perfect for video on planes, etc. Otherwise, fuggedaboudit. To some degree, I think we’ve all gone a little bit crazy with “new media”. Everything’s so accessible that it seems devalued to me. I still lament the death of the old album covers – which I now find make great “art” framed – and from which I learned a lot as a kid readiing Nat Hentoff, Ralph Gleason and Orrin Keepnews liner notes in record stores – when I could only afford one album with my allowance money and had to choose carefully.
July 1st, 2007 at 10:46 am
I like shuffle as well, which is available on other players that don’t only play the tinny, bassless MP3s.
July 1st, 2007 at 10:49 am
Actually Randy, I think you’re probably right about high-gig alternatives to iPod in terms of relative cost. I’m totally into the simplicity, small size and “serendipity” of the Shuffle. I think its one of the smartest bits of tech ever invented. Suits my temperment, my shirt-pocket, my actual musid needs and my wallet to total perfection.
July 1st, 2007 at 10:53 am
iPods haven’t defaulted to MP3s for a long time. i forgot what the newer one is called, but it’s a great balance between file size and sound. I can “shuffle” on my multi-cd player at home. But there’s nothing I’ve ever seen that’s as small and cheap as the iPod shuffle. I’d put it up there with the pocketknife for great utility/design achievements.
July 1st, 2007 at 11:41 am
OK – maybe not just MP3 – but iPods do not play high density lossless digital files like FLACs.
July 1st, 2007 at 1:00 pm
The “high density lossless digital files” I’m familiar with are AIFF, and they’re space-hogs. I can play and record them in iTunes – never tried to put them on an iPod. Wouldn’t bother for the context… Apple now has an “Apple lossless” MP4 that’s supposed to be equivalent to FLACS. You’re getting into an argument on the margins that goes over most people’s heads – and ears.
July 1st, 2007 at 2:20 pm
I have 700 hundred of my favorite CD’s on my Zen Touch. 99.99% of the time I leave it on “Random” and that suits me fine.
This afternoon I listened to it as I walked from 53rd and Lexington to 34th and 9th. The music selection was about as diverse as New York.
Part of the problem with the loss of bass must be with the earphones. In the summer I use earbuds, but in the fall, winter and spring, I use some noise canceling headphones that sound great, especially on the subway.
July 1st, 2007 at 2:53 pm
“700 hundred of my favorite CDs”
Uh oh, Randy. I guess you know that having fully Seven Hundred “favorite CDs” (maybe more) puts you in serious Music Geek terrain. My wife sent me to Music Geeks Anonymous for help…and the (mostly) guys there just ended up trading music mixes and obscure tracks.
July 1st, 2007 at 4:38 pm
I like noise cancelling headphones, but rarely use them. In fact, geek that I am (as well as having a very close friend who is an audio engineer), I know for a fact – using a sound meter and my ear – that vinyl reaches higher highs and lower lows than CDs which in turn reach higher highs and lower lows than MP3.
July 1st, 2007 at 5:11 pm
They’re a godsend on the subway and when I used to fly a lot, they were terrific.
Reg,
My tastes are eclectic as you may have noticed from the random 10 postings.
It’s funny though; my MP3 player seems to have certain preferences of its own. It plays a lot of Jorge Ben, Djavan, Trilok Gurtu, Carol Sloane and Carmen McRae
July 1st, 2007 at 8:40 pm
My favorite point about the Iphone is that it creates an opportunity to comment about the hype about the hype about the hype. Seldom does a gadget extend to that level of meta-publicity and/or interest.
That’s also why it’s a given the machine won’t live up to expectations.
The standard, inaccurate, view seems to be that Apple’s Ipod was a superior device that made Mp3s appealing to a mass market. That distinction belongs to I-tunes, the software that made buying and organizing digital sound files easy.
Sony’s devices, as just one example, have always been more attractive, durable and price competitive with Apple’s. But because Sony was hell-bent on “synergy” between it’s record company and hardware, it produced devices that only worked with music in its proprietary ATRAC format.
Apple was the first to get record companies to swallow their pirating concern enough to assemble a viable catalog of music available online. Itunes was also easy to use for putting CDs onto your pc and, then, onto your Ipod.
The Iphone–as a phone–has none of these advantages and is, in fact, more like Sony’s early digital music players. It’s restrictive to users in that it’s only available via AT&T and, at that, only works on a 2G network.
Even then, it had to get AT&T to change the way its network operates to be able to perform some of the unique functions, such as organizing voice mail into folders. I doubt Apple will succeed in getting providers globally to play ball in this way on other issues. The providers generally get what they want from device makers, not the other way around.
July 1st, 2007 at 10:31 pm
We recently got a Creative Zen V Plus at our place. It’s great and way cheaper than a corresponding iPod. Reg, check out the Creative version of the shuffle: http://tinyurl.com/2yj8ux.
The only problem was that since my music wasn’t in MP3 format, I spent a ridiculous amount of time transfering over to Windows Media Player which is just plain inferior to iTunes.
As the article notes, Apple has tried to brand itself as continuously revolutionary. Check in with Castro if you want a quick refresher on the sucess of the never-ending revolution.
July 1st, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Well, I admit that I have NEVER owned an Apple product, but on Friday night I ventured out to the mall about 11:00 PM to buy a IPHONE. But, by the time I got there they had sold out 7 minutes earlier, but at least I was able to get most of my questions answered since there were still 20 sales people waiting to close at Midnight, who had nearly nothing else to do but help me and turn away other customers.
Yes, I know it is expensive, but I still want one:
to make matters worse, I want the 8Gig version which costs $599;
to make matters worse, I have a blackberry which my company pays for 100%
to make matters worse, I don’t have any MP3 only CD’s
to make matters worse, I recently bought a new cell phone.
But, luckily I am justifying this expenditure (at least to myself) by thinking that I can write useful niche software for the millions of users of this little jewel using some technologies which are little understood by most programmers.
Well, so on Monday I plan to venture out again in hopes of finding one of these illusive beasts because it is soooooooooooo cool.
July 2nd, 2007 at 12:44 am
If you want to understand WHY the iphone is a breakthrough technology – please visit the following link for a video explanation. This can only be seen to be understood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKh1Rv0PlOQ – Unveiling the genius of multi-touch interface design
http://www.perceptivepixel.com/ – Jeff Han’s (who gives the presentation above) website.
Apple has 200+ patents on the iphone and purchased a company called “Fingerworks†and their patents a while back.
July 2nd, 2007 at 4:08 am
Yes, Pokey, mobile telephony is itself amazing and producing the hardware for it requires numerous patents.
But whatever programming genius Apple possesses, it’s only as good as the wireless network and its platform and, at this point, AT&T’s 2G network is distant from the cutting edge.
So when it comes to actually placing phone calls, the technology Iphone uses is low and slow. But man does it flip those album covers!
July 2nd, 2007 at 5:23 am
Well, I confess I went to the Apple Store and tried one out. If I had 5Cs lying around I would have bought one. Yes, there are flaws, but it’s way cool and beautifully designed.
However, I will wait for the 2d generation, when many of the bugs are out and the features are improved. It might even be a bit cheaper.
July 2nd, 2007 at 6:57 am
Bunkerbuster – YOU did NOT go to my links! They are NOT Apple links.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKh1Rv0PlOQ
July 2nd, 2007 at 7:06 am
Do you know how hard it is to find a phonograph needle these days? I still have some good LP’s but the needle broke and it took me a long time to find any store that still carries them. The needle cost me about $15, which puts me about $600 ahead of those who bought the iPhone.
July 2nd, 2007 at 7:44 am
“The needle cost me about $15″
Well, I glad you can now play your Doors albums again. But you haven’t talked me out of my $599 (perhaps fooling) purchase yet.
“Edge Networkâ€
Yes, it is not the best, but It is usable and available in all the areas that I frequent. I currently have a blackberry which works on Edge and it is not so bad on the internet, that was until my company put (web sense – blocking) on this site and others – Arggggggggggggg!
But the WiFi is COOL
July 2nd, 2007 at 7:55 am
Woody – I’m with you….vinyl forever. forty year old records sound better than MP3s downloaded yesterday or CDs bought the day before. I also – thoguh its not hooked up – have a reel to reel tape player that was also my late uncle’s, with albums on reel which sound fantastic. Did this take off? I guess not.
July 2nd, 2007 at 8:49 am
It’s so hard to read the album covers on those music downloads.
July 2nd, 2007 at 11:33 am
Forget the EDGE network.
A better reason to avoid AT&T is that it’s a criminal traitor of a company, having willingly aided the NSA’s domestic surveillance scheme.
July 2nd, 2007 at 11:34 am
Did you see where Apple made the same stupid mistake with the battery on the iPhone that they did with the iPod. You get something like 300 charges and then have to send your phone in for a new battery.
My wife threw out our 8-Track player. Anyone need some tapes?
July 2nd, 2007 at 2:57 pm
As prices for digital devices in general plummet, the idea of having a single device to handle photos, music and phone calls will seem sillier and sillier.
Yes, the Iphone handles images beatifully and is better than the Ipod for playing with your music files, if not for simply playing them, but its weakness, of course, is in making telephone calls.
The strongest point of Iphone, for my money, is that it includes WiFi capability. Of course, there are many phones out there that match this at much lower cost, but if the Iphone does it better, i.e. more seamlessly, it may be worth a look.
I predict the Apple will be forced to admit Iphone’s failure to meet expectations about a year from now, about the same time as i-tunes starts to seriously lose its near-monopoly on the digital music access business.
The company will always have its evangelistic fans, but its appeal to ordinary consumers will remain in the margins.
July 2nd, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Telephone calls? Why in the world would anyone want to make telephone calls on a telephone?
How many people use a computer to compute?
July 2nd, 2007 at 5:10 pm
I hope soon they will come out with a phone that can wipe my ass clean!
Read this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674022033/ref=wl_it_dp/002-5194588-3149616?ie=UTF8&coliid=I395AUKOQG3PTG&colid=1FAXNS1CQ53I3
this
http://www.amazon.com/High-Tech-Trash-Digital-Devices/dp/1559635541/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b/002-5194588-3149616?ie=UTF8&coliid=I395AUKOQG3PTG&colid=1FAXNS1CQ53I3
this
http://www.amazon.com/Technopoly-Surrender-Technology-Neil-Postman/dp/0679745408/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b/002-5194588-3149616?ie=UTF8&qid=1183421226&sr=1-1
this
July 2nd, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Uh, Josh. I wouldn’t be putting such a phone up to your mouth and ear.
July 2nd, 2007 at 8:29 pm
What addicts. No wonder Scooter skated.
July 2nd, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Have the 8800 (the non-global version). New to crackberry-ness. Love the thing. Best technology in a phone I’ve every encountered, far and away.
Woody, I can’t speak to the battery on the iPhone, but my little iPod nano has been charged a lot over the last two years and still holds a charge just fine after much obsessive use for music, podcasts and books. (Audible book downloads R me.)
July 2nd, 2007 at 9:01 pm
“What addicts.”
And your point would be….?
July 8th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
oh how cute, everyone’s being all curmudgeonly about a product most of them have never used.
the only reason I don’t buy one now is that I’m waiting for the 2nd generation one to come out with more storage, and will most likely be sold by T-Mobile in Europe. Once that happens, I can keep T-Mobile as my carrier and still use it in the US (yes you can do this now even).
For a lot of what I do which is to respond to messages and do small maintenance on a couple of websites, the iPhone would be a lot easier to carry around than a laptop all the time, and in a free WiFi environment, would be fine. Sure it isn’t perfect, but I have used the current crop of smartphones and frankly they suck ass.
yeah I know one can’t be cutting edge unless they shit on everything popular, but I looked at the other options then this one and realized that for me (and not necessarily everyone) it is not bad, AT&T still sucks all the balls ever tho.
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