'First to Do It' vs. 'First to Do It Right'
daringfireball.net
daringfireball.net
I'm sorry, but a three-month old phone should not be obsolete. If I get a iPhone 4, I have every confidence that Apple will make every effort to ensure that subsequent iOS upgrades work on my phone until there's a legitimate technical reason to exclude it, not some bullshit profit/loss maximization algorithm.
The Android ecosystem will remain fragmented because every single phone+manufacturer+carrier combination requires a decision and engineering resources to upgrade. I could never recommend an Android phone to anyone but the anti-Apple hordes.
Kudos to Apple for doing this, by the way. I have an iPhone 3G and really appreciate Apple's efforts in keeping my device up-to-date.
Apple's decision to own the phone from end-to-end (sans AT&T) has proven to provide a high-quality experience to customers. It's telling that the only part of the experience that Apple doesn't own is arguably the largest pain point of the iPhone.
It's too bad that Android/WinMo answer to the OEMs, and not the other way around. If Compaq or Dell dictated upgrade policies for PCs the world would be a very different place.
No updates for a 3 month old phone is quite a large difference from leaving a hardware-limited feature out of an update to a 2 year old device.
Just wondering what sort of stuff the new iPhone 4 will get that the ipad will not. Hopefully it is just more memory for video related stuff, and will not hold back any new upgrades for the ipad.
Now with iOS4, simil-multitasking and a lot of video to edit, 256MB seems just a bit to tight.
We have to wait and see if the release of the iOS4 for the iPad will bring come new hardware with it.
This is similar to my laptop rant the other day. It's sad to see companies shooting themselves in the foot.
The Desire is the flagship (to htc), the tattoo is the low-end budget and the legend/wildfire is mid-range.
All of the other models HTC makes seem to be due to deals with carriers/other companies. The Nexus One is a google-branded phone sans sense. The Sprint hero had changes from the regular due to Sprint. The last goes on.
I imagine HTC is somewhat forced into this position. They don't have enough market power, so if a carrier wants something different, they generally have to comply.
As a WinMo user, I've long accepted that the OEMs are terrible. My solution to this problem is make sure that whatever phone I buy has a strong hacker community around it so that I can unofficially upgrade whenever I wish. With my current phone, I flashed away from the stock ROM within a week and I upgrade every 6 months or so. In fact, I can even run Android on my phone even though it didn't exist when my phone was originally released.
This is just nonsense. Looks like your one of the "anti-apple hoard" the GGP was talking about. It's pretty well known why the 2%-3% of apps get rejected: using a private API, violating the agreement, violating laws (e.g. ignoring codec copyrights).
Name one single piece of "innovative and competitive software" that was rejected without a good reason.
If you're trying to bypass the phone company that is using the phone as a loss leader of course you can expect that app to be rejected. Skype is approved though, afaik. Is that your only example?
[1] http://gizmodo.com/5324268/apple-rejects-official-google-voi...
The iPhone does not have one of the most innovative apps for a phone. QED.
And speaking of Skype, will they be allowed to do video chat on the iPhone 4? Maybe they will, maybe they won't. I wouldn't bet my house on it though.
For example, I do wish I could have VLC, but it's pretty obvious why I can't. This is the trade off of controlling your channels. Apple can't just say "well, we let this app on and if people want to use it to watch 'illegal' movies, there's nothing we can do about it", since they very well can do something about it. Android, with their open architecture probably can't block things like VLC so they can't be held responsible for people using it.
It is. When I posted my comment, Google voice was the main example I was thinking of (but certainly not the only one). The fact that you don't know about it is part of the problem. It'd easily be on the top of the app store lists if it was available. It just goes to show that because of Apple you don't even know what you're missing.
Your VLC example doesn't make any sense. You can watch whatever illegal movies (and illegal music) on your iPhone all you want using the built in software. You'll never get VLC, not because of anything illegal, but because "it duplicates functionality already existing in the phone". That's it.
Google voice is what? An implementation of VoIP? I wouldn't call that innovative, there are plenty of companies doing VoIP, none of which would ever be allowed on the iPhone because of carrier restrictions.
>You'll never get VLC, not because of anything illegal, but because "it duplicates functionality already existing in the phone". That's it.
Not true. Have you been in the app store? There are tons of apps that just duplicate functionality. There are several browsers and a few streaming video players.
No, it's not. I could tell you spend the next 15 minutes telling you what it is or you could just look it up yourself on this thing called the Internet. Your purposeful ignorance here is not a good argument tactic.
The reason that Apple rejected Google voice was because of the "duplicate functionality" argument. Other apps don't prove anything except that they aren't threatening to Apple. As soon as an app exists that is, they just pull out one of these excuses and it's gone.
It is a shame that they used "duplicate functionality" as the excuse, they should have just said "this is not acceptable under our AT&T plan".
Also, it's not VoIP from the phone like Skype is. It uses your regular voice connection and voice minutes and not the data connection. What it does provide is a portable phone number, free SMS, voice mail transcriptions, and a host of other calling features. It's the kind of innovative application you'd expect when you combine the cloud with smartphone technology. Apple just doesn't want you to have it.
Unfortunately, back to your original comment about why apps are rejected (private apis, etc, etc) is, unfortunately for you, not true. Lets say you want an app to control your PC bittorrent app from your iPhone? -- Forget it, also not allowed. I understand now allowing apps that put strain on the network or use private apis but rejecting innovative apps or app that hurt Steve Jobs sense of morality just rubs me the wrong way. I'd rather have an open platform with a slower upgrade cycle.
To anyone who has heard of Google Voice it's pretty clear that it's valid to put it forward as a innovative product. The level to which it's failed to permeated the broader public consciousness doesn't count against it at this stage in it's existence.
and I'd hate to contribute to making HN another Reddit...
This is awesome. Not because of any of the parent's points, but simply because we're living in a world where telephones have their own communities of hackers. How fast did that happen?
I still have a phone that does little more than make phone calls, and the best hackers in the world when it came out were barely able to get it playing "snake". And it's not a very old phone.
The future rules!
Do you even remember the stunt Apple pulled a few years ago where they dropped the price of iPhone from $599 to $399? Do you intend to ping pong between Apple and Android whenever they announce such decisions?
His point is that, unless he buys a N1 maybe, he will never ever have any guarantees that his phone will be kept up to date for even 2 years.
> Cyanogen even supports the ancient G1 to very nearly the latest 2.1 version of android.
Disingenuous, Cyanogen specifically supports 4 phones: Dream, Magic, N1 and Droid. Notice the distinct lack of Motorola Devour in the list?
You're pointing at something you think should theoretically be better and pointing fingers when it doesn't pan out, meanwhile the "evil" alternative is giving users a great experience.
But just because I love Apple products, it doesn't mean I cannot also defend Android when someone blames it for something thats not its fault. I love Google and Android for what they do too.
And yes, the openness leading to such situations is not Google/Android's fault. Just as much as an authorized gun salesman making a legal sale is not at fault when someone then uses their guns to go postal.
Also, the OP getting so worked up comparing support for a little known model of cellphone to Apple's flagship product is funny if not foolish.
Your gun analogy doesn't fit. Google doesn't control their distributor so the product they make may never see the light of day. It's not about someone using Google's free offering to injure someone, but rather taking it, making their own (inferior) creation and passing that off as Android.
I welcome competition in the space to be sure, but people screaming about Apple keeping control of their product (would you expect anything else from Steve Jobs?) are missing the point IMO.
https://supportforums.motorola.com/community/manager/softwar...
It's been a major pain trying to call my wife and tell her how to set all these things up before we can attempt a video chat.
I'd like to see Dan Hesse and his board of directors watch two HTC EVO noobs attempt to video-chat. It would be downright embarrassing.
Please, before investing millions of dollars with your front-facing camera make it at least work out of the box without having to jump through a dozen hoops.
Nothing against your desire for video chat, I just don't agree that having no video chat is "insane".
Also, couldn't somebody create a better app for video chat on the Evo?
Apple ships completed projects, many companies ship promises they never intend to fulfill.
Does the camera in the Evo not work, or does the 3rd party video chat application not work?
It seems that HTC can add hardware features faster than they can add the software, or they are taking the stance that the software should be third party, which has its own advantages and disadvantages, as pointed out by the article.
You would think that at the very least they would have worked with the two companies offering video chat to get stuff working easily.
Maybe this will all be sorted out in the next few months.
This quote sums up my issue with Gruber. Everything for him revolves around being a fan of a product (in his case Apple products). I just want great products. Might be iPhone today, Android tomorrow, and Windows Phone next year.
Edit: Also, don't forget this classic — Apple Needs a Nikon (http://daringfireball.net/2007/11/apple_needs_a_nikon)
Salient quote from Stephen Fry: "So you can guess that I certainly do think design is important. But it doesn’t have to come from Apple. In fact, I wish to goodness it came from everywhere."
Well heck, so do I, but I wouldn't call myself a "fan" of either.
Actually I try not to be a "fan" of anything. Describing yourself as a fan of something seems to be a way of making the rather dull act of liking something into part of your identity.
What I'm trying to say is that I think your preferences will always be a large part of who you are, like it or not.
That said, I'm a fan of Apple because I admire their work. I'm enamored with the substance of their products, and I could care less how ownership affects my image [Edit: more honestly, I try not to care]. (I actually think declaring myself a fan of Apple is a detriment to my image, especially in this forum. C'est la vie.)
How did you pull that from this article? He basically says, "I like things that are fully-baked," not, "I like Apple products."
I have been a "Mac Fanboy" for about 15 years, and it has always been about execution. I have no loyalty to Apple, but insomuch as they make better products than anyone else, I will unabashedly say that the competition is crap. If another company stepped up and made better products, I would start using those (and competition is great for the consumer).
Which is basically what you just said, except that you (as many people do) treat Apple as somehow special. I don't fully understand it, but I think that Jobs' often smug attitude turns people off to the entire company and their offerings. They see Apple as elitist-in-a-bad-way, and even if they are popular now they are somehow a fad. Which is fine, but in that case it would be more correct to say "I dislike elitist CEOs," than "(HP|Dell|Compaq)/(Windows|Linux)/(Android|Wince) is just as good as Mac/MacOS/iPhone." Because really, they're not and never have been (software compatibility complicates the Windows/MacOS comparison).
Cheaper maybe, but never just as good. (You can often spot the weaker competition by their extensive "feature" lists.)
And if you've been a "Mac Fanboy" for the past 15 years, you haven't been a fan of quality. Until a couple of revs into OSX the Mac OS had been garbage. Mac OS Classic became a dog (it was great in '84).
If in '84 to the mid-90s you were an Apple/Amiga user. And then switched to Windows. And then switched back to Apple around 2002 then you may have a claim. If you didn't get the iPhone until the 3G came out, that's a good sign. If you never bought into the PowerPC being WAY faster than the x86 processors that's a good sign.
But in my experience, Apple "fans" are surprisingly not all that discerning when it comes to Apple products.
And let me be clear... the iPad is the best tablet on the market. The iPhone will be the best phone on the market again, starting next month (I give the nod the Evo right now). Altough I'll take Win7 as best desktop OS, and Google has the best web browser.
It's about looking objectively at each solution and technology. Not these weird claims that no one else does anything of merit, but Apple. The bozo bit gets set right when you say that, because there are several obvious examples of other companies doing good work.
I won't say that Apple's products are perfect - the pinnacle of what can be done - just currently the best.
Wow, thats cold... I'm the zealot? There is some personal inertia in switching desktop platforms...
You seem to be espousing a desire for good products that is similar to the viewpoint Gruber states in this post and others, but you say that his viewpoint isn't genuine. Do you believe that he's been duped by Apple into thinking their products are good, but that you're more immune to that? This needs elaboration.
I also think that in the paragraph you quoted earlier from Gruber, he was assuming that the Android and iPhone fans are fans because they identify with statements like the two he provided, rather than that they would identify with those statements because of their status as iPhone or Android fans.
It's not clear to "most of us" (who is "most of us" anyways? Hackers? I don't think so. MacHeads, probably.).
Of course Gruber isn't going to say, "I think Apple is the best even when they're not." He couches his fanaticism in "good taste". And it just so happens that everything Apple does has good taste, and everything anyone else does, does not. Unless they subsequently get bought by Apple.
I don't know if Gruber has been duped, but when I see someone who believes a single company is universally good and their competitors universally bad, I get suspicious. Of course taste is taste. Someone might say that Coby is the pinnacle of consumer gadgets. No one makes better quality than Coby. You'd immediately flip the bozo bit on them, although maybe you'd be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.
I just find so little that Gruber says has any objective truth in it, which is why it is hard for me to respect him.
And lets be clear. On my personal blog, I can easily find a lot of really good products from a variety of places. I don't think Gruber has that capacity. For example, could you imagine Gruber saying a positive word about an MS product. For him a product is an MS product above everything else. Quality of the product is a secondary aspect of it. This is why Apple products all get passes. Their first Apple products, and then their quality comes next. And then he justifies the quality of Apple products.
"I also think that in the paragraph you quoted earlier from Gruber, he was assuming that the Android and iPhone fans are fans because they identify with statements like the two he provided, rather than that they would identify with those statements because of their status as iPhone or Android fans."
What does being a fan have to do with having an opinion? Again, his polarization of the world through his lens makes him susceptible to this form of thinking (whether using my or your interpretation).
At the end of the day Gruber is simply not informative, and its due to his fanatical fanboyism. I can pretty much write a Gruber post. I'll take a current Apple controversy. I'll tell you why Apple is right/better, and the competitor is worse. I'll take liberties with logic or common sense, but I'll drop nuggets of insider knowledge (and those are actually useful, and keep his blog from being a total waste).
But then again, I'm sure he's making a lot more money with his blog than I am with this random posting on HN.
Ah, so you're suspicious of Google then? Good, so am I.
Are they perfect? No. Are the companies that made them flawless? No. But I can appreciate a product/company, yet not have my identity tied up with the product. I use an Apple product, but I'm not defined by that use any more than I'm defined by the fact that I use Sylvania light bulbs or Colgate toothpaste.
By the standards of the dictionary I have before me, then, you meet the minimum requirements for the word "fan" to be applied to you. It doesn't mention anything about wrapping your identity up in the target of your interest/admiration, nor does it mention anything about needing to believe that the target is flawless.
But that's good news, right? You don't need to get your hackles up when you hear the word "fan" anymore.
It should be obvious if you think about it, though: Would someone need to deny that Willie Mays ever made an error in order to be his fan?
Yet Gruber does.
I'm glad you take solace in being a fan. Feel free to refer to me as an Android/WP7/iPhone/Nokia/Palm fan when it comes to mobile phones. Seems like a pretty worthless statement (I used to think I was just a Laker fan, but by your definition, apparently I'm even a Clippers fan!), but if it makes you feel better about Gruber and his characterizations and perspective, feel free to do so.
Yet Gruber does.
That's just disingenuous.
He's clear to point out (a) that there are fans for each and (b) that they will read the paragraph VERY differently. Yet, both of us are fans of both. It seems that according to your definition we have a bit of a contradiction. Gruber never hints at the possiblity of a third way to read the paragraph -- or even the fact that each individual would read that paragraph and draw different conclusions based on a variety of factors -- being a "fan" not necessarily being the dominant one.
If I read a paragraph, for example, that takes an issue from each gender's perspective, I know that they're painting with broad strokes and that they probably know about hermaphrodites but just didn't mention it.
I don't think someone needs to acknowledge chimeras every time they write something that assumes a person has one set of DNA.
Sure, it's fun to be Pedantic Man - the superhero whose power is that of being willfully obtuse - but I can read that paragraph and still think he's captured the two aspects of myself that are actively debating about the relative merits of the two platforms. And most people do develop brand loyalties. You and I are somewhat exceptional. I'll be the chimera; you be the hermaphrodite.
I get the sense that you'll say anything to prop up your hate, though. Go on ahead without me.
Take the front facing camera. HTC Evo? I don't even know what that is! I have ALREADY made video calls with other skype users using my Nokia N900. Not only that, I sometimes do it over 3G, if I'm out of range of a wifi. Oh yeah, and it's all integrated into the normal phone experience - I don't have to launch a separate app just to make calls (how does that integrate with contacts?) Apple was not first. They restrict video calling to wifi and only through the apps they approve. They did it WRONG.
Do I sound harsh? Yes, probably. I think this is the only way for "daring" fireball to stop writing bullshit.
Does it do HD (720p) video calls? Do both parties need to setup a Skype or GTalk account to have video calls?
Yes, you can't make video calls to your friends microwave oven - they'll need to use whatever protocol you are using. And yes, the N900 supports gtalk as well (although I haven't tried video chat with it myself).
Its kind of like he takes what my intuition tells me, and then takes the time to explain why and give examples.
Before you down vote me, this is a personal opinion. I can understand if you think I'm crazy. If you disagree with Gruber's view (and I have a few times), then in your view my intuition is wrong and his articles are contrived -- and this may be true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
You act like your the "first" to do something (or at least since the jetsons), then when someone calls you on it you fall back to a subtly different claim to be the "first to do it right" where right is a subjective opinion that can be argued with, but not an objective fact that can be disproved like your first claim.
It helps if you and your audience are both american and have little idea of what has been done and/or done right in telecommunications for years overseas. Then you can focus on the Android phone that introduced front facing cameras to the world last month as your benchmark for better.
Personally, I think video calling will be niche, but having a front facing camera will open the door to all kinds of cool 3rd party software like photo manipulation software similar to Photobooth on Mac OS X or the software built into the Nintendo DSi, or eye-tracking etc. This is where the policy that Apple only ships hardware that it finds a slick 1st party use for falls down. I have a video camera on my Macbook, only ever used for Photobooth and Skype, never video iChat.
I once saw a guy standing in the subway, looking on the floor, gesticulating like crazy. I though the guy was either drunk or mentally ill.
As I left the subway, I realized that the guy was holding a phone in his hand. I could glimpse on the display and saw another person gesticulating.
Apparently the guy was deaf and was talking in sign language in a video chat. On a subway, which probably had no Wifi. That was in 2007.
I was amazed by technology (and felt like an idiot for the snap judgement).
The existing 3G network infrastructure wouldn't be able to take the beating.
A. No 'cut and paste' for 2+ years and then a well-executed solution.
or
B.'cut and paste' that can be used now. Cumbersome but gets the job done.
Personally, I'd go with B.
In another year or two Apple may provide the notification system of my dreams, but after three years I'm ready for anything that doesn't involve a button press, screen swipe, and passcode, just to checkif I have unread email.
Copy and Paste existed in smart phones long before the iPhone was ever released. It's something that existed and people expected in the iPhone from day one. (And since most of those phons had physical keypads, the UI mechanism for doing it was fairly intuitive)
I figured it out about a week before I switched to an iPhone.
Are you joking? I never even realized my old E70 could copy/paste (then again, I never quite looked for it either, but it definitely wasn't obvious), and on more recent efforts for the Pre the copy/paste implementation is an utter disgrace. And yes, it does use the physical keyboard.
B. Being with someone now who's a constantly unreliable, annoying reminder of how you could do better.
Personally I'd go with A. (And yes, I think tools::relationships is a valid analogy.)
A. Being jobless for 2+ years and then getting the perfect job.
B. Having a job now that kinda sucks, but pays the bills.
B for me. :)
People who like OSX/iPhones/etc. enjoy their stuff in the same way one enjoys a relationship—it's not a necessity, it's just useful and fun and beneficial. They may come to rely on it, but they won't expect anything of it that it can't do; they'll just figure out their own way of doing it that won't "hurt their relationship."
People who like Linux/Android/etc., on the other hand, demand things of their hardware and software, the same way you are demanded to work if you want to earn money. In the same way one optimizes a business, they will ruthlessly hill-climb toward efficiency, taking any new feature that provides even a 1% profit-benefit, as long as it has a less-than-1% working-time cost.
To put it another way, Apple users anthropomorphize Apple products, and thus have empathy/respect/admiration/etc. for them. Linux users objectify hardware and software, and do things to them (and require things from them) that would be considered sociopathic if done to people. Neither approach is "correct", mind you—software (Operating System software in particular) is a bit like a living thing, with needs and desires and the ability to cooperate with you, but it's also most definitely less "alive" than a real animal.
Going with the relationship analogy, isn't that like dating someone ugly and annoying because she has character?
Personally I think ideology must always bend to practicality or you end up with some really ridiculous results. I personally think Jobs wants to make the experience for the user the best possible. Not because he is benevolent, but rather because he is worried about what people will say about things he made. And in his case that takes priority over any open ideology that will actually result in a worse experience (that people will associate with him/Apple).
So I propose you swap being single to being celibate in the metaphor.
Personally I'd choose the short term gratification route :) Although strangely I've chosen iPhone over Android...
Ultimately, it is an interesting marketing play, I suppose - the "it's not a bug, it's a feature" of marketing, maybe?
1) Get some features out to gain traction/user
2) Make sure it works and that the user experience will not be negatively impacted.
We have to learn from our mistakes and also learn from what our users want. For that we need to experiment even if it means refactoring / do things differently when we need to.
You can't iterate on hardware the same way you do on software. If you're used to building the minimum possible thing that will work, shipping that, then gradually improving it day by day you are in for a rude awakening in the hardware business. You can't improve the hardware after it is out of your hands. All you can do is release a second piece of hardware that incorporates improvements. But you must charge all your customers over again, and not all of them will upgrade, and the whole process takes a lot of time and has a lot of friction.
You also can't iterate on a public API the way you do on an app. Once other folks have dependencies pointing to your API the cat is out of the bag. It is several orders of magnitude harder to deprecate an API than to release it. This is why, while iterating on software is good in general, you really don't have the option to reinvent your platform's basic copy-and-paste API too many times. It really pays to iterate internally until you get that right.
Also wanted to add that reputation and trust are extremely important in the hardware business (and the retail software business). Many people can buy Apple's next thing without doing much or any research about it, and without having to wait for reviews because they trust that Apple wouldn't subject them to a piece of crap, due to their track record. This is not something that can be said about many other companies, and it's an extremely valuable asset.
It also feeds their ability to create the "Reality Distortion Field".
More to the point it applies to Apple.
They have this brand image where everything is slick, tight, usable and so forth. It is "just right". To release (using Grubers example) half baked copy/paste would have appeased a few - but it wouldn't be the "Apple way".
That's not a bad thing; it doesn't make their products bad (and actually makes most products awesome!). More importantly it's their brand niche and they do it well. In fact they do it like no other.
Having amazing user experience and products that "just work" shouldn't be something that only Apple does. The fact that you think of something being slick, tight, and usable as a brand image makes me dizzy. Shouldn't EVERYONE strive for these characteristics? I know my startup does.
Of course we should strobe for the same :-)
The incredibly illuminating example he used to demonstrate this? The crappiness of the Windows GUI:
It occurs to me that the App Store’s restrictions and control are to this coming mobile era what Windows’s inferior user interface was to the PC era: something that offends some critics to a degree such that they will insist for years, despite the success and popularity of the platform, that it’s a fatal flaw that will ultimately doom it.
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/05/19/fitzgerald
So will "doing it first" doom Android and limit its growing success and popularity, or does he just not like things that aren't done "right"? I also think, like the Windows GUI, that you'd be surprised about how much what you think is "right" has to do with what you're used to.
Easy: the difference is that 3G data is not an internet connection.
Sure, you can browse the web, but most 3G data package don't give you a public IP, so your phone can't be a server, and they tend to block many TCP and UDP ports. Your phone is effectively in a private network which has a very limited access to the rest of the Internet.
That, plus the fact that carriers make you sign a contract that forbid you to use their bandwidth in certain ways.
Apple has a pretty good headstart but they have to compete against a whole industry, they don't have a shot.
>Apple has a pretty good headstart but they have to compete against a whole industry, they don't have a shot.
Odd to see an opinion like this on a site that leans toward Entrepreneurs.
iPod.
However, the could have put the front facing camera on without the software, since people can write apps to use. As for doing it right, I don't think an app that only works from iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 on WiFi is doing it right. Doing it right would to be able to Skype video call to anyone who has the app, be that on the Mac, Windows etc.
Also, if you think Apple themselves have to use all the hardware in the phone, then look at the gyroscope, Apple have no software that uses it.
If you really believe Apple spent 2 years developing and perfecting cut&paste you are crazy. They waited until they wanted to implement it. What their cue was, I don't know, but I have my suspicions.
Copy-paste is actually a perfect example here. I have had many smartphones and PDAs (iPaq, Nokia communicator, Sony-Ericsson P910, P990 and a few others) - and in none of them I actually ever used the copy-paste (if it was there), or at least certainly not as much as I do now on my iPhone. Worst clipboard implementation I've ever seen was that when I copied text in a one application, apparently it was placed on the clipboard as UTF8 or Ansi text. No problem so far - but apparently, if your target app then only accepted ascii text - too bad, no copy-paste. Try explaining that-one to a normal user, good luck... I then prefer the focussed on core-features, "no clipboard" approach instead of a confusing, non-working or unreliable feature you end up not using at all.
Now I'm not an Apple fanboy, but I do have an iPhone (only Apple product I own). I'll be the last to say that it's perfect and everything is entirely "done right", but from what I've seen - from a user-point of view - it's without a doubt the best thing out-there. Yes there are on paper "better phones" with "more features" which are "more open", but whatever, it just works. On PC I might be considered a power-user, but my phone is a vital part of my life. I don't want to mess around on it too much - it has to simply work. I did consider buying an Android phone for the sole purpose of playing with it, but I simply don't have the time for that at the moment. I might still do this in the future, after having played with 1.5, 1.6, 2.1 and 2.2 on various models of friends - I have to say, I'm impressed by the technical improvements, but still - the user-experience is just horrible. There are some cool ideas, like the notifications - but the execution is mind-blowing irritating after a while. It feels to me as a linux desktop 10 years ago: editing your config file with vi is easy. Designed by an engineer, for an engineer.
How can the person with the iPhone make a video call to the person with the Evo, yet only one succeeds? Isn't it the case that for a call to be successfull, both parties need to be able to communicate?
For no obvious reason people buying Apples 3GS over the next year will not be able to receive such calls, nor make them with their back mounted camera.
Since you can't even call to the vast majority of other iPhones, you can guess how this competition would go if you had to show pictures of your newborn to your parents who only had a laptop computer.
So a big hurrah for Apple's sudden embrace of "open standards", as now maybe a 3rd party will bring this to us. Shame 3rd party software is by definition not as good as Apple stuff but I guess we'll just have to cope.
Lack of front camera sounds like a pretty obvious reason for lack of video chat.
> So a big hurrah for Apple's sudden embrace of "open standards"
Sudden? Are you joking?
Why, when switching between the two cameras is highlighted as a useful feature for videoing your child playing, would only having one of them kill the deal completely. Am I missing something here? I did explicitly spell these reasons for why you don't need a front facing camera for video chat out in my previous comment but you appear to have missed it.
On open standards, are you really telling me that section of the keynote didn't seem odd? Did you consider that it perhaps was a shot across the bow of Google introducing an actual open standard using an actual open standard video codec rather than H.264? And that its implicit message didn't clash horribly with the fact that it won't work even with some iphones or any macs, even those bought after the introduction of the feature?
Nothing, but then again it's already perfectly possible to collect and send videos using the current 3GS. What is not possible is video chat, because there is no frontal camera making chat not video. You might want to notice that Fring has support for video calls on the iPhone yet it's one-way only due to lack of front camera...
> Why, when switching between the two cameras is highlighted as a useful feature for videoing your grandchild playing, would only having one of them kill the deal completely. Am I missing something here?
That the main point of video chat is to see each other? The ability to switch to the back camera is a feature to temporarily show something to your correspondant. It's a nice feature to complement voice chat, but on its own it's pretty damn pointless and building a video chat application for a back camera makes no sense.
> On open standards, are you really telling me that section of the keynote didn't seem odd?
No.
> Did you consider that it perhaps was a shot across the bow of Google introducing an actual open standard using an open standard video codec rather than H.264?
h.264 is an open standard. And it's in fact part of the open standards used for facetime.
> And that its implicit message didn't clash horribly with the fact that it won't work even with other some iphones or any macs bought in future?
No and no.
First one, because older iPhones do not have frontal camera making video chat not an option. Second one, because it piggybacks on the 3G network for the establishment of the connection, macs don't have builtin 3G access so how could they have facetime?
Second one, would it be nice if iOS4 also had a regular iChat A/V client? Definitely, shame it doesn't. But it will likely get one, and there will more than likely be a Skype or Fring update using the front camera soon, but it's quite a far cry from the seamlessness apple demonstrated (and probably wanted to build) with facetime.
Regarding video chat, we don't seem to be moving forward here. Do we agree that Apple has intentionally limited the software available to older iPhones? That it is actually physically possible to receive(!) video calls on a phone without a front facing camera, and that there is a market demand for it, both demonstrated by Fring having this feature on iPhone? (A quick google reveals many commenters first reaction to this feature in Fring is: why can't I use the camera on the back of my iPhone?)
They are, by most (if not all) industrial definitions of open standards.
> Do we agree that Apple has intentionally limited the software available to older iPhones? That it is actually physically possible to receive(!) video calls on a phone without a front facing camera
Of course, why wouldn't it be?
> and that there is a market demand for it, both demonstrated by Fring having this feature on iPhone?
Not so sure about an actual market (other than fringe) on the subject, no.
First to do it 'right for me', or first to do it 'right for Apple's shareholders'?
In this case he's talking about video calling. Ignoring the fact that nobody is actually going to use video calling (it has come so many times on many devices. The Evo was far from the first device to implement it), let's humor his point.
So let's compare-
Apple iPhone 4 - video calling between iPhone 4 devices, only over wifi, using Apple's completely new, completely non-standard protocol. Apparently it "works great", at least for people using demo units at an Apple conference under controlled circumstances.
Evo 4G - Android device with a front-facing camera. Apps support it to talk on any network you want. Fring, for instance, allowing you to call Skype video users on pretty much anything including PCs. This is over wifi, or a 3G/4G connection that can support it.
Gruber has close to no experience with the iPhone 4G, and his entire experience with the Evo 4G is one reviewer's take. Nonetheless, that has made him an expert.
Is iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 calling considered done? Seriously? To me that barely qualifies as beta. It barely qualifies as alpha. There are a legacy of long existing, open video calling protocols, and many existing implementations. Only the truly faithful could call Apple's take done.
EDIT To draw from a comment I left elsewhere, here's an exercise for Daring Fireball supporters: Imagine, if you will, that Motorola just introduced their latest Android device, front-facing camera and all, called the iDroid. The iDroid comes with an easy to use, ultra-simple video conferencing solution, but it only works on wifi, and it only works between iDroid devices.
How, I ask, would John Gruber respond to that? Imagine that it's been tightly polished and all.
Would he post a praise-filled entry lauding their innovation, heralding this great new functionality? Maybe I'm just being a jerk, but I think he would viciously attack it.
Especially when the whole point of Gruber's article is that nobody uses video calling because it's a confusing and complex mess, and when it isn't so (e.g. skype) it gets used, and when iPhone 4 comes out it will get used a lot more.
So let's compare-
Apple iPhone 4 - instantly popular with millions of people using the exact same make and model with the same software within a few months. Video calling baked in as a single button visible on every phonecall, advertised as a primary feature, designed for easy use.
Evo 4G - Phone with camera on the front. Not such a one-off instantly popular hit. Video calling not possible until specific apps heard of, downloaded and installed, configured, then still different and more hassle to use than a normal phonecall. Other features vary by app.
And only the truly antiApple could suggest that people are calling Apple's take "done" in any final sense as if nobody believes it will ever change ever.
It was obviously a personal opinion. See, I'm not making a grand blog entry waxing poetically on why no one will ever make video calls, carefully creating a curated (word of the month) list of support blog and tweet entries to bolster my supposition.
I offered zero supports to my opinionn. I think you're missing a big difference there. I don't pretend that I have supports for personal opinion.
>So let's compare-
Apple is big and successful (biggest tech company...yet people still pretend that they're counter-culture supporting them. Funny, that). Therefore their "we're big and successful" gives them leave to build things only for their, to use the trite descriptive, walled garden?
"You can made all the video calls you want...as long as anyone you want to call has an iPhone 4 and is currently on wifi...and so are you. Easie-peasie!"
Seriously, this pushes to the point of being comical.
>And only the truly antiApple could suggest that people are calling Apple's take "done" in any final sense as if nobody believes it will ever change ever.
Obviously it will change. Gruber considers it "done right". I think it is done absolutely horrifically, and it is done in a way that is exactly the problem many people have had with Apple's actions.
This is NOT a perfect solution. Of course being able to do it over 3G or 4G would be awesome. As Steve Jobs said.. that will come. They are working with the carriers to make it happen. Why does the solution have to be perfect day one? Baby steps my friend. Do you not think Steve Jobs wants it to work this way as well?
You saying it's done absolutely horrifically is comical, not the other way around. To you, what makes it horrific, is the fact that it only works sometimes, not 24/7. That's pretty ridiculous.
Also, I must point out that when Apple releases something it usually IS done right. It usually is very, very close to finished. Apple polishes before they release, it's in their DNA. Steve Jobs is insane about sweating the details.
>This is NOT a perfect solution.
Indeed. It's not done right. Which is pretty much the point.
Here's a exercise: Imagine that the Droid XIX came with video conferencing that was super easy -- a single button -- but it only worked on WiFi and it only worked between Droid XIX devices. How do you think Gruber would respond to that?
Do you think he would say "Yeah. That's video conferencing done right"
It's done right from an experience perspective, which is the point Gruber was trying to make. Using the feature is dead easy, meaning it's done right. The example of the other phone he gave was not dead easy to use, it took the user hours to figure it out and when he did the experience was still awful.
If the feature worked over Wifi AND 3G/4G it would be EXACTLY THE SAME. No different. It's the feature itself we're talking about here, not when and where you can use it.
If you want to blame someone for the feature being held back point your fingers at AT&T. Or at least blame Apple for taking so damn long to jump ship and offer it to more carriers, but not for shipping a broken solution, as their solution is what looks to be pretty flawless.
Your exercise: I don't know what Gruber would say, but I can take a stab at it. I'd bet it would be along the lines of, "Good to see another feature in Android giving the iPhone a run for its money, competition is good." or "It's great Android can make video calls but it would have been better if they adopted the FaceTime standard so they could call iPhones as well".
No it wouldn't. Having a protocol work over wifi is remarkably easier than having it work over 3G. The latter introduces clustering and latencies that you just don't have on any normal wifi. It's just as easy to assume that it is a bandwidth pig and is heavily susceptible to latency issues, which is why it is thus far limited to wifi.
Of course everyone else immediately started by making a solution work on 3G (and even edge), with wifi being a "nice to have extras" platform.
>I don't know what Gruber would say, but I can take a stab at it. I'd bet it would be along the lines of
When has Gruber ever said that? When the Android phones had dramatically better resolutions than the now almost intolerable iPhone 3GS and before, did Gruber ever commend that? In fact I believe the only time it even started to come up was when the iPhone 4 was an open secret and he knew it offered the new benchmark resolution, so suddenly competitive resolutions became a conversation point, but only from a "they're behind what is coming" angle.
How about Android notifications -- Gruber has defensively pushed back against the reality that Android has a dramatically better notification system. Yet, good for a laugh, he recently gushed that a notification expert from Palm (he was doing the "See Android was just a copy cat anyways" thing) was moving to Apple, clearly implying "So soon it'll get a better notification system than the notification system that was a non-issue just yesterday".
Gruber, to me, is like Republican talking heads of the worst kind. He filters information to see the world exactly the way he wants to see it to serve his agenda, which is to pimp Apple.
Example: you're at work and your phone rings. Do you prefer doing a quick chat and get back to work asap or showing your face and doing a nice conversation? Same thing goes when you're outside and possibly at home.
The only time when this is going to work is when two people have previously committed to do a video call.
Again, I'm making an assumption too, only time can tell.
Yes.
Seriously, this pushes to the point of being comical.
No.
This pushes to the point of being useful. It's not like WiFi is something you only have access to on Thursdays and in big cities, or that they think WiFi-only is what they want because that's best. WiFi only is a compromise.
For now you can have iPhone4 to iPhone4 via wifi, in future it will also be for 3/4G cellular, and for anyone else who implements their standards when that's available. Which I'm very interested to see what they've done about firewalls and NAT and central servers.
Did Apple say at anytime that it will be available over 3G or that the standard will be open?
Strongly hinted at it during the keynote. If you're a jailbreaker, 3G Unrestrictor might also work already (though not recommended on AT&T)
> or that the standard will be open?
Clearly said it during the keynote, and then proceeded to list all the existing open standards it's built on.
slide appears with "Wi-Fi only in 2010"
> FaceTime is going to be WiFi only in 2010, we need to work a little bit with the... cellular providers, get ready for the future [...]
Good grief. I assume you must be talking about Market Cap and that just happened. If you look at how much money they make they are still dwarfed by MS and probably IBM, etc. as well.
You were complaining about spin?
Indeed. Market cap is what gives companies weight to throw around. Apple is in a position where they can acquire a large portion of the industry, and where their actions cause tremors of fear. That's the impact of market cap.
Where do you come up with this stuff? You think Apple was "throwing their weight around" with the iPod? Before they released it, I think most people didn't even realize Apple was still around. With the iPhone? The smart phone market was barely worth paying attention to before they reinvented it.
Talk about "reality distortion field".
>Again with the spin.
What spin? Are you for real?
I said that Apple is the largest tech company. Yes, the normal measure is market capitalization.
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=apple+...
You then go off about how that just happened (so? Are we supposed to be talking about the past), but how it doesn't matter anyways. To which I mentioned that being so large allows them to throw their weight around. See the panic when there were worries that Apple would consume ARM.
Your whole argument is against nothing I've actually said, and you seem to be arguing for Apple of 2003. Well guess what, loewenskind, it's 2010. I'm here with reality, you're not.
And quit calling everything "spin" after you've thoroughly misrepresented the point.
>I said that Apple is the largest tech company. Yes, the normal measure is market capitalization.
And given that is a very recent development what possible relevance could it have on anything?
You seem to be claiming that Apple is doing an "old school Microsoft" when they literally just beat MS with market cap in the last couple of weeks. Things are going Apple's way right now because they're executing. No other reason.
>See the panic when there were worries that Apple would consume ARM.
I've seen rumors but no panic. Maybe panic from people who are desperate to see Apple fail (which at some point they will, as everyone does).
>Your whole argument is against nothing I've actually said, and you seem to be arguing for Apple of 2003. Well guess what, loewenskind, it's 2010. I'm here with reality, you're not.
No, I'm arguing about you calling people out for "spin" and then serving up a double helping of it yourself. With every post.
Extraordinary.
>You seem to be claiming
No. I'm not. You are extraordinary.
Look, I'm sorry that I looked at your sacred cow the wrong way. Yet everything you have said has been against a strawman. It's a bit sad, really, but I'm sure you'll have another go declaring that the slant of the apostrophe there means that I think Steve Jobs eats baby blood.
As much as executing so well that they've changed the industry several times? Surely even you realize how bias you are.
>No. I'm not. You are extraordinary.
Then what was the relevance in mentioning it? Throwing in random, unrelated facts into the conversation... just because?
>Look, I'm sorry that I looked at your sacred cow the wrong way.
My sacred cow? I don't even own an iPhone! I'm just not going to sit back and watch you blast others for spin that doesn't stroke your bias and spew it out yourself as fact.
>It's a bit sad, really, but I'm sure you'll have another go declaring that the slant of the apostrophe there means that I think Steve Jobs eats baby blood.
More spin from you. I've never seen a post from you on this site that wasn't taking some kind of cheap shot at Apple.
If you don't like Apple, I don't care. Don't buy their stuff. But don't vomit nonsense and misrepresentations all over the site that someone has to correct.
Despite this, the adoption is near zero. I remember that I tried it once, just for the novelty and have quickly forgotten about it. Most people didn't even try it, despite the ad campaign by mobile companies.
So what makes you think, that when Apple comes with some features decades later, with many more limitations and complications (Am I on the wifi? Does the contact have iPhone? What it was called? Face-what?), that it will be more popular than zero-setup and seamless compatibility in billions of Nokias, Sony-Ericssons, Samsungs and LGs already shipped and used daily?
Saying that "it works right" between two iPhone 4Gs and limited to a wifi network, is like saying the AMC Gremlin is the greatest car in the world on a local track.
It uses a standard Internet protocol (SIP+SRTP) as they said in the keynote.
Skype actually does use a proprietary codec (On2 VP7, which Google hasn't released) in their Skype<>Skype video chat. Does Fring use that, or does it support 3G too?
In any case I'd see not using 3G as a major advantage for FaceTime, since H.264+AAC is much better than low-bitrate H.263 used in 3G.
While it draws from a lot of existing standards, it embraces and extends. It isn't interoperable with anything currently deployed.
Which is interesting because one alternative world would have seen them introducing the standard a year ago, to be met by broad acceptance and compatibility at release. They chose not to do this, meaning that early adopters enter a very scarce world.
> video calling (it has come so many times on many devices.
> The Evo was far from the first device to implement it),
> let's humor his point.
I just discussed video calls with some of my friends (we all work/have worked with mobile phone software). We agreed that it is one of the biggest technologies that the manufacturers have specified and implemented that _nobody_ has _ever_ used.
Now this article was the first time I read about iPhone 4 and video calls. I wonder if Apple is going to be the first one to have people actually using the feature. I mean it's not that odd a feature, people chat on Skype with webcams all the time.
Also kind of interesting that video call was one of the main arguments to spend billions to build 3G networks (at least here in Finland).. what.. almost 10 years ago? And IF this works for Apple, it's not going to use any of the technology built back then (not the 3G network and not the software specifications).
How, I ask, would John Gruber respond to that? Imagine that it's been tightly polished and all.
Would he post a praise-filled entry lauding their innovation, heralding this great new functionality? Maybe I'm just being a jerk, but I think he would viciously attack it.
----------
I love how you're using a hypothetical scenario in which Gruber would very plausibly praise the implementation in question in order to undermine his credibility. He has often pointed out when a competitor does something better than Apple does, or otherwise markedly improves on the status quo.
All you've done is create a gestalt which people who don't know any better will interpret according to their biases. Talk about arguments that don't bear any scrutiny.
Most who reads DF would come to a common prediction about how Gruber would have responded to that hypothetical. It doesn't undermine his credibility, but simply puts into context that he is, failing to have a better word, a fanboy.
"The email client adds support for Exchange and, moving ahead of the iPhone’s MobileMail, adds support for a combined “all accounts” inbox view." (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/10/27/android-20)
"Interestingly, browser scrolling in Android 2.0 seems to have far less “friction” than the iPhone — flick the page and it seems to scroll until you stop it." (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/10/28/engadget-droid)
"The best thing that could happen for iPhone users would be for the Android and/or WebOS communities to start shipping apps that make iPhone owners jealous. Google Voice for Android is the best example so far." (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/08/10/torrez-android)
I think it's a shame that you're attacking him for a counterfactual.
It's also interesting that the best you could find was from over a half a year ago.
Most criticism of Daring Fireball has to do with how it has turned so rabidly one-sided over the past few months. Gruber has somehow taken up the battle as a personal mission, now valiantly defending Apple against the evils of Google or Adobe. While before he did the whole "compliment sandwich around an insult" thing, now he doesn't even bother with that and it's instead just all criticism.
I'm disappointed that many of the comments on this thread have to do with the version of John Gruber in your head, and are attacking his character instead of his real arguments, as opposed to the arguments he makes in your imagination.
That wasn't sudden, Adobe and Macromedia have always been famous for slow programs and inconsistent UIs (although I hear Lightroom is good).
Or real.
The problem is that there are several different kinds of things you want to do to a collection, but in C you just have the for loop and have to keep writing e.g. filter every time you need one. Over and over.
Apple gives you the functional approach to multitasking: there are a handful of things you actually want to use multitasking for and they're all supported with the api. You're complaining that they didn't give you that dumb for loop so you could just do it all yourself by hand. Over and over.
Apple gives you a fixed set of functions that you can pass to map(). Other OSes give you chance to write your own functions that you will be able to pass to built-in map.
Further, if I'm reading your code I don't have to go "Oh God, they started a thread. What do they think they need it for...", I can just look at what API you used and I know exactly what the goal was. Exactly the same advantage that map/filter/reduce/etc. have over a for loop.
It is basically: what do you want? This or that supplied function covers your need, you can pass it. Sorry, you can't make yours, what would you possibly want?
Honestly? I don't know right now. Maybe I will have earth-shattering idea next week or month, but I don't know right now. The point is, the original authors of map didn't try to envision what you are going to use map for, and provide enum for choosing an appropriate action. They allowed you to pass any function you want, doing whatever you want.
For example, when speaking about Android, the framework contains class that handles things like managing threads for you. You just plug-in the required functionality, just like you pass your function to built-in map. The boilerplate that you are arguing against is simply not there. Just like with map you know, that "this function will be applied for every item in set" or with filter you know "you will get new set containing items from original set for which the supplied predicate is true", you know that "this functionality will run in background". The accidental complexity of managing it is hidden; the functionality allowed is not fixed.
>This or that supplied function covers your need, you can pass it. Sorry, you can't make yours, what would you possibly want?
We've had concurrency and services for decades, we already know every general action you can possibly do with a service. No one is going to come up with some totally new novel use for a background service anymore than anyone will come up with a new general action to apply to lists. Everything you would ever want to do with a background service can be divided into about 5 kinds of tasks and those are covered. Full stop.
If you disagree then please describe some act with a service and I'll explain to you how that already fits in one of the 4 or 5 kinds of things people do with services. Proposing that some day, some where someone may come up with something that doesn't fit this mold is just hand waving.
AFAIK it's not possible to simply keep an SSH or IM connection open when you switch to another app.
Keeping SSH or IM connections open is an action of a well known use for servers; listening for updates. And that's covered in the API.
You're wrong. These are the same excuses that people always make for apple, that simplicity and functionality are mutually exclusive. This excuse seems to usually be made ONLY for Apple. Why can't they have their easy to use APIs but ALSO have the ability for real developers who want to write "that same for loop over and over", or who, you know, what to write something like an Instant Messaging application do so?
What you can't do is have your app sitting in the wait queue for data coming in over the wifi because that would mean the wifi card has to run constantly. Ask Android how quickly doing that can drain your battery.
My battery lasts fine and I'm generally logged into IRC and/or meebo for most of the day in addition to the Google Talk that I leave signed in and my three email accounts that get updates. etc, etc. The battery woes are simply unjustified for the most part.