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Comment by Herring | Hacker News Reader

I must have been the only one paying attention last few weeks during the iphone complaints. Apple is fun, i imagine, when you don't care about OSS, drm, or anything that Jobs has a tight fist clenched around.

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You may have a different requirement from a product (OSS, etc. - I myself prefer to use Linux because of the open-ness) while others may have different (wanting it to look good, do the common things without a hassle) - but why is that a reason to say "passing off crap"? I will agree to the iPhone complaints, so they botched up the launch by sending out a half-baked product. The 2.1 update seems to have fixed a lot of problems for many people. The iPhone is driven by software a whole lot more than other phones are, and so gets updated at a very high rate. That is a good thing. How many phones you know keep adding features to themselves or fixing their own bugs via software updates? Or do other phones just not have any bugs or annoyances?

I will admit, though, that Apple tends to go overboard with its cheesy marketing tricks and ploys many times. They should let the products speak more. In most cases, they just do.

Out of curiosity: what tricks and ploys do you think it pulls, beyond the "I'm a Mac" ads?

The "twice as fast" and "half the price" ads were rather disingenuous. The "most advanced operating system" -- what? that's true only if you consider how great it looks. Otherwise, we can easily rattle off many Unix variants which kick OS X's ass when it comes to performance. Xcode: "the best IDE ever". MobileMe: "you can't believe this is a web-app, unheard-of usability in a web-app!" It just doesn't stop. They go overboard.

As for the "I'm a Mac" ads, they are not that bad at all.

Disclosure: I own an iPhone and am madly in love with it. I also own a new iMac, and love its looks and would like to make OS X work for me, but have not been very successful at that. Perhaps because I am just used to Linux.

The "twice as fast" I agree you with. Xcode I've heard nothing about. MobileMe I agree with them: it's beautiful unlike any other web app I've used. The service rocks too.

The operating system is absolutely the most advanced. The fact that it gives you so much power without any tinkering is stunning. Corner-window commands, the vast keyboard commands, and the incredible efficiency of Spotlight are my favorite quick things to point out.

The iPhone is owned by wireless carriers first, Apple second. No matter how Apple feels about OSS or DRM, they still have to treat the iPhone as a signed-and-sealed-and-dictated black box, because that's what the carriers demand in order for Apple to be let onto their networks. If they only had the iPod Touch (and had built their own VoIP suite on top as the "phone" part, say) they would likely be taking a very different approach with the App Store.

Unfortunately, this tends to be true.

It will very be interesting to see how this changes once Verizon opens up their networks to all products that prove their compatibility. Hopefully it will be much better then the locked down equipment they currently sell.

The only network I get home reception from won't even include flashes on the vast majority of their camera phones.

Yeah. I am pretty sure Apple´s iPhone business would collapse the moment they decide to sell unlocked phones to anyone who wants them, anywhere in the world. It would also not resist if Apple decided to allow people to install software from any third party phone owners wanted to.

With all the demand for iPhones, the only reason to this closedness is maximizing profit at the expense of end-user flexibility.

You seem to forget that AT&T had to create an entire new system for handling voice messages just to let Apple host their phone. You also forget that Apple refuses to compromise their design, which means that they needed AT& T specifically because Verizon's a dick about stuff like that.

Usually Apple isn't against making tons of money, so I think it makes sense that there's a logical reason behind their actions.

Does the same logic apply to T-Mobile? As Apple's exclusive iPhone provider in Germany, T-Mobile must already have both a sufficient voice message system and an adequate deference to Apple's sense of design. Why not allow them to be an iPhone provider in the U.S. as well?

The truth is that Apple feels it can make much more money from exclusive contracts with the carriers than it can selling the phones directly to consumers.

The iPhone is owned by wireless carriers first, Apple second.

And yet Microsoft produces a more open mobile platform. If you believe AT&T is dictating the abusive iPhone terms, I'd recommend you lay off of the Jobs Kool-Aid for a while. It's effecting your perception.

Exactly. The tech industry has had so much of the Microsoft monopoly that they're anxious to run out of the arms of one dictator and don't even care that they're headed straight into the arms of another.

Unfortunately, trading Gates for Jobs is like trading Mussolini for Hitler.

Also, AT&T is one of many carriers around the world that they partner with. I don't hear anything about openness on any other.

I have a 3G iPhone and it is definitely not crap. It is a beautiful product that works really well for me (checking email, surfing, voice).

DRM sucks, but the iPod has proven that the presence of DRM doesn't mean a product is crap.

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