Quotes: iPhone/iPod Touch Owners
Which cites a study here that — why is there any surprise? — people actually do more with their iPhones than any other smartphone.
Oh noes!! How can that be?
I have an expert who came right to this blog and authoritatively stated:
I’m tellin’ you, open source mobile devices are the wave of the future, not closed ones, especially not closed ones apparently designed around the philosophy that, in the interests of “simplicity”. features will be trimmed right down to the nap in order not to complicate the lives of the poor, befuddled users of those devices.
[. . .]
The iPhone’s a footnote. Kinda like the Mac, y’ know? By the time they come out with a 3G version, I’ll be surprised if anyone will care.
Emphasis added by me.
But … but … let’s hear from people who actually own such devices:
I own iPod-Touch. I also own a Pocket PC from HP. Both have WiFi. But the user experiences of surfing the net from these two devices are day and night different. I even use my Touch more often than my laptop on the net. The key factor for iPhone/Touch becoming so useful on the net is that they can view full web pages instead of mobile only pages, and then multi-touch ability allow me to zoom in and out and pan so easily.
Emphasis added by me.
JQ brought up a very important point when thinking about the iphone in relation to other mobile devices. It really is the user experience that makes a difference. A lot of people tout the iphone as the first real mobile computer, but if you think about it, the iphone is just a repackaging of the pda which originated years ago. You could also view full web pages on those too, just not the full page on the screen.
I do find it amazing how Apple is able to repackage such items, simplify the user interface, and add some aesthetics to make a popular item. Microsoft definitely needs to take some lessons from apple in this regard.
Emphasis added by me.
But wait! What about all those people who sprung for a Palm Treo? That’s what everyone agrees is a “smartphone,” as opposed to the denigrating label of “featurephone” usually slapped on the iPhone by its detractors. Surely a Palm smartphone must be a great thing to use?
I didn’t I watch TV and browse sites in my Treo before the iPhone because it was not possible to watch TV and was miserable to browse on. I don’t waste time because of my iPhone on the contrary; I do more productive things because I have a device that is capable of multiple tasks.
Emphasis added by me.
I am shocked! Shocked! Wasn’t it Palm’s own Ed Colligan who was certain Palm would maintain its leadership in smartphones?
Well, maybe ACCESS, which now owns PalmOS will provide a real iPhone challenge?
Let’s see:
I don’t see how. Do you?
My God! The world is doomed by the iPhone! A “featurephone” that an expert claims is a footnote and which has features “trimmed right down to the nap”!
Someone save us from this device that enables people to do more than any other phone!
Explore posts in the same categories: Tech - Apple, Tech - Microsoft, Tech - Other, Tech - Palm, Video - Online
Mike Cane 2008 
March 18, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Yawn. You still don’t get it, Mike. Sadly, I’ve come to realize that it’s unrealistic of me to expect you to.
Technology continues to move forward. There are plenty of big companies whose sole business is making cell phones, who are busily bringing out devices in response to the iPhone, and Apple’s going to have an increasingly hard time keeping up with them, especially if they can’t keep on making those 50% margins they require. And they can’t.
Fact: iPhone sales in Europe are pretty stagnant, thanks to absurd pricing and lack of 3G capability.
Fact: iPhone sales in Asian geographies are nonexistent, other than on the “grey market”. Apple’s not making their income on those beyond the initial purchase.
Fact: There are more iPhones for sale on eBay than any other cell phone, over 2000 iPhone sales (which is more than over 2,000 devices: people are attempting to dump them there in lots of as many as 100.) In contrast, there are just over 200 Nokia N95 for sale…
Fact: AT&T has enough refurbished iPhones (that is, units which were returned to them by dissatisfied buyers) that they’re offering them below Apple’s own pricing on refurbs.
Fact: Apple’s not buying the flash parts they need to make more iPhones.
Got an explanation….?
Fact is, the iPhone is, and will continue to be, a niche product. And I fully expect it to be relegated to an increasingly smaller niche. Like ’em or not, Nokia sells as many phones on a good weekend as Apple ever has. That won’t be changing any time soon, not when Apple’s attacking the market with one carrier per geography (with 5 year exclusive contracts) at a time…
March 18, 2008 at 8:08 pm
For those who missed it: “Lefty” is an employee of ACCESS, which owns the PalmOS and which is selling what it believes is a competitor OS to the iPhone, the ACCESS Linux Platform (ALP). Keep that in mind.
For someone whose OS is on zero phones, in zero countries, on zero carriers, with zero sales, he talks bigger smack than Google.
March 18, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Yawn. And it’s “Garnet OS”. Get it straight.
March 18, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Heh. “Goofing off is still the killer app for the iPhone.”
There’s something to brag about. “iPhone users waste ten times as much time looking at YouTube and FaceBook than other smartphone users!”
Exciting.
March 18, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Looking forward to the iPhone coming to Canada. It’ll be the first cell phone I’ve paid for. :)
March 19, 2008 at 8:07 am
Lefty: One person’s “goofing off” is another person’s productivity. How many handsets have been sold with ALP? Oh yeah. Zero.
March 19, 2008 at 8:57 am
Feel completely free to describe a line of endeavor in which spending one’s time looking at YouTube and FaceBook constitute “productivity”.
This is pretty simple: bigger screen = more web use. No special mystery there. And Apple certainly will not have a monopoly on phones with big screens or full-featured browsers. The lack of Flash support, and the abysmal Javascript performance are clear weaknesses here…
Market share isn’t an excellent argument for you, either, Mike. Nokia = 40% of the global cell phone market; iPhone = a fraction of a percentage point. I guess if the iPhone’s better than ALP on that basis, Symbian devices must be eighty or a hundred times better than the iPhone.
(By the way, since we’re educating you on rhetorical fallacies, you’re committing the error of ad populum here. A billion flies will insist to you that excrement is good eating, but that isn’t an argument in favor of that proposition.)
I’d like to point out that, in aggregate, LiMo (of which ACCESS is, of course, a member) represents about another 40% of the global cell phone market. I foresee the iPhone as ultimately being the “pet rock” of the cell phone market–enjoying some short-term faddish popularity, but lacking legs in the long run….
March 19, 2008 at 10:28 am
>>>Feel completely free to describe a line of endeavor in which spending one’s time looking at YouTube and FaceBook constitute “productivity”.
No. Who has to justify or even explain their life to YOU?
>>>This is pretty simple: bigger screen = more web use. No special mystery there.
ACCESS will fail bigger than I first thought, if that’s their thinking. I had a 4″-screen GENIO PPC and I have a LifeDrive with the same screen size and pixel count as the iPhone. *Neither* provided a web experience anywhere near the iPhone. Are you on some sort of medication that impairs your judgment? Don’t be ashamed to say so. I wasn’t.
>>>Market share isn’t an excellent argument for you, either, Mike. Nokia = 40% of the global cell phone market; iPhone = a fraction of a percentage point. I guess if the iPhone’s better than ALP on that basis, Symbian devices must be eighty or a hundred times better than the iPhone.
You act as if these figures are carved in stone. Still, ACCESS = zero. And that probably will be carved in stone.
>>>I foresee the iPhone as ultimately being the “pet rock” of the cell phone market–enjoying some short-term faddish popularity, but lacking legs in the long run….
Wow. Thanks for being a new candidate for Dumbass of the Year!
March 19, 2008 at 11:10 am
Are you on some sort of medication that impairs your judgment? Don’t be ashamed to say so. I wasn’t.
More ad hominem. No, I’m not on any medication, Mike, unlike you, I’m quite healthy, both mentally and physically. My cholesterol runs around 130, if you’re interested.
If you’re incapable of actually keeping up with a discussion, don’t be ashamed to say so. After all, it’s glaringly obvious to anyone who cares to look.
You act as if these figures are carved in stone.
And you act as though these figures don’t exist. Sticking your fingers in your ears and going “Lalalalalala, I can’t hear you, lalalalala…” doesn’t actually amount to a response.
The Nokia 810, to give just one example, provides, overall, a web experience that’s–in my opinion–superior to the iPhone. It supports more web sites, and does an overall better job of it. There isn’t a site you can get to with the iPhone that you can’t with the Nokia, while the converse is definitely not the case.
Thanks for being a new candidate for Dumbass of the Year!
I guess as judge, you’d have to disqualify yourself, hm? As I always say, if an idiot calls you “a moron”, what’s that supposed to prove?
March 19, 2008 at 11:36 am
>>>I’m quite healthy, both mentally and physically
No, not the former.
>>>The Nokia 810, to give just one example, provides, overall, a web experience that’s–in my opinion–superior to the iPhone. It supports more web sites, and does an overall better job of it. There isn’t a site you can get to with the iPhone that you can’t with the Nokia, while the converse is definitely not the case.
Yeah, and Maemo has been out *how* many years? And how many apps have been written for it? And who aside from the ubergeeks have bought it? Your point is what? That because that device can do Flash, it deserves to automatically “win”?
>>>I guess as judge, you’d have to disqualify yourself, hm? As I always say, if an idiot calls you “a moron”, what’s that supposed to prove?
Hey, when I’m wrong, I state it. Why don’t you go to *your* blog and show the world how great ALP will be and how it will conquer the world? Have a ball and *really* indulge your delusions! At least you won’t be annoying me or anyone over here.
March 19, 2008 at 1:58 pm
No, not the former.
Do you have any greater competence to make that judgment than you do to make technical judgments…? Where’d you take your degree in psychology, Mike?
Hey, when I’m wrong, I state it.
Oh? You invited me to “come back and gloat” at the end of February if Apple hadn’t released the “iPod Air” (or is that the “iPod Vapor”…?) Here I am. And you have yet to admit that there’s clearly no such thing. You’ve just pushed out your date.
(By the way: if you surround the stuff you want to quote with <i><b> and </b></i> it’ll turn out nicely bolded and italicized. No charge for the free HTML lesson.)
At least you won’t be annoying me or anyone over here.
I don’t see anyone else whining about it. If you don’t want to be “annoyed” by comments on your public blog, just turn ’em off.
March 19, 2008 at 7:35 pm
You are a very sad specimen.
March 19, 2008 at 7:51 pm
You are a very sad specimen.
Well, there’s a well-thought-out criticism. Can you do anything other than call people names, Mike?
In fact, I’m an extremely happy guy. I have a challenging, well-paying, interesting job, I get to travel extensively, I present and appear on panels in a wide variety of venues worldwide. I’m on the Advisory Board of the GNOME Foundation, the Board of Directors of the Open Media Now! Foundation, just to name two; I’ve got friends in most major cities around the world. What’s to be sad about?
And by the way, I am an “expert”. See, for example, this article, in which I’m quoted extensively.
March 20, 2008 at 8:32 am
You’re the one coming here every day, sometimes several times a day, exhibiting the fundamental characteristics of mental illness:
1) Inability to see you don’t make any sense
2) A compulsion to continue posting even after you’ve constantly disgraced yourself and reflected badly on ACCESS, your employer
3) Descending into physical threats
4) Delusions of grandeur because your tiny ego is built upon the foundation of your employer — an employer that is obviously not going to go anywhere with its last-century reinvention of what everyone else has already done
5) Having to pull out examples of your value when everyone has already been shown by your own actions that you are clearly lacking in any value whatsoever
Oh, I never said you weren’t an expert. But you devalue the term.
March 20, 2008 at 8:53 am
Yawn. I’m out of town, Mike. I’m staying in a hotel. I’ve got free time I wouldn’t otherwise have. You’re cheap amusement.
Sadly for you, that’s all you are.
Gonna manage another dozen-and-a-half postings today?
…physical threats…
Please point out any “physical threat” I’ve made. Having done so would constitute assault on my part. Call the cops, by all means.
March 20, 2008 at 8:55 am
Seems you’re not even competent to post comments to your own blog, pal. Nice work putting exactly the same comment in twice.
March 20, 2008 at 9:27 am
WordPress burped. I thought you were such a big expert too. FAIL.
March 20, 2008 at 9:27 am
Oh, I see you deleted it. Happily, I’ve got a screen shot.
March 20, 2008 at 9:29 am
Yet more evidence of your mental illness.
March 20, 2008 at 9:30 am
WordPress burped.
Gee, I’ve used WordPress an awful lot, and it’s never done that to me.
But whatever you say, Mike. If you say it isn’t “pilot error”, nor another example of your technical illiteracy and incompetence, who am I to disagree?
FAIL.
Baka ni tsukeru kusuri wa nai.
March 20, 2008 at 9:38 am
You are a total waste of time and clearly deranged. You are banned. Congratulations on being the only person I’ve done that to. Seek competent mental help. You clearly require it.
March 20, 2008 at 11:47 am
Aw, c’mon. Bring him back, Mike. Every blog needs a troll. They’ fun to bait ;-)
For the record, I was a Palm user starting with the Palm III on through Handspring and three generations of Treo, ending with the 755p. Did some programming for it too. Also own a Nokia 700. And now an iPhone. I’m what you’d call a loyal customer, and here’s what I think:
1) Palm blew it. They had every chance to push the envelope, but they chose to do piddly incremental fixes for years (ooh, orange cases!) to both the OS and the hardware. I’m gone and never coming back. Palm will end up being to iPhone like Sansa is to the iPod. If they’re lucky. Or like Go and PenPoint if they’re not.
2) The Nokia is an interesting solution looking for a problem to solve. It sits on my bookshelf, gathering dust and making me feel like I’m an early-adopter idiot.
3) The iPhone — your ACCESS troll friend (discounting for his obvious bias) doesn’t get that the iPhone doesn’t need to be perfect. It needs to be *good enough* (and it is). It doesn’t have 3G, Flash, or multiple simultaneous apps. So what. It handles a sufficiently large chunk of tasks a typical person wants in their phone/PDA to make it worthwhile.
And if Apple makes it as easy to add an app as it is to buying a song off iTunes, it’s going to make a lot of customers (and developers) happy.
March 20, 2008 at 12:25 pm
He is a mentally ill person and his words will no longer appear here. He has other outlets for his sickness (where I notice no one of programmer-caliber even bothers to reply to his comments).
700? You mean that ^%$#ing 770? Wow, a big success Maemo has been, huh?
March 21, 2008 at 4:27 am
> You mean that ^%$#ing 770?
Yup. Slippery finger. The 770. It’s not a bad little machine and they obviously spent a lot of time putting it together. It just seems like they never did enough usability testing — like it was never intended for general (non-geek) audiences.
To this day, I don’t understand why they don’t stick a cell phone inside it. This is Nokia after all! They should know how to build phones. Or at least an EVDO modem. That way, you know if you’re nowhere near a WiFi hotspot, that at least you’ve got some way of connecting.