Wired have a great article looking at some of the lesser known aspects of the iPhone, Apple's foray into the mobile phone market. It's a really interesting read and highlights some of the innovative strides that have been made:

The iPhone cracked open the carrier-centric structure of the wireless industry and unlocked a host of benefits for consumers, developers, manufacturers — and potentially the carriers themselves. Consumers get an easy-to-use handheld computer. And, as with the advent of the PC, the iPhone is sparking a wave of development that will make it even more powerful. In February, Jobs will release a developer's kit so that anyone can write programs for the device.
...
It may appear that the carriers' nightmares have been realized, that the iPhone has given all the power to consumers, developers, and manufacturers, while turning wireless networks into dumb pipes. But by fostering more innovation, carriers' networks could get more valuable, not less. Consumers will spend more time on devices, and thus on networks, racking up bigger bills and generating more revenue for everyone.

It seems likely that development of Google's Android platform has certainly been spurred on by the success of the iPhone. Overall it's good news for consumers everywhere with more choice and more freedom on the cards.

Pity apple treats development on the iPhone like a stepchild with downs - at arms length and locked away.

Pity apple treats development on the iPhone like a stepchild with downs - at arms length and locked away.

From the pen of Steve Jobs comes this:

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers' hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.

Reading the wired article sort of explains why its taking so long and goes some way to mollifying my impatience about not having an SDK for launch - they're doing something that noone has ever done before, which is almost certainly going to result in the loss of a significant revenue stream for the typical mobile phone carrier.

This is the phone that's locked to one network right?

if it could send mms I woulda got one already

the thing I hate about the iphone is that there's nothing really innovative about it, all the mobile tech in it is previous generation, and the interface isn't that much more advanced than other similar phones, just gimmicky.

There are problems with the interface, some things require the use of two hands, so you have to place it on a surface. And since you can't feel the buttons so you lose some kind of efficiency there I reckon...

Well its prolly (one of) the best touch screens in a mobile device. Works like a charm, especially with multi-touch.

The interface isn't so much more advanced, as just very polished. Animations are smooth, graphics are high quality, it doesn't take forever to draw the screen like in some (even brand new) nokias and the interface is very well designed for the finger touch issues that some other devices like the prada have (such as the pesky scrollbars right on the edge).

The operating is very polished for a phone operating system. It does lack some features like MMS, disk use and other such things but once you use an iphone or ipod touch, other operating systems just seem unpolished or just generally old or lacklustre.

Pity apple treats development on the iPhone like a stepchild with downs - at arms length and locked away.

You know, there are some people who would argue those children should be terminated before full term, can we apply the same example to the iPhone? :)

It does lack some features like MMS, disk use and other such things

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the entire point of this thread? That the potential functionality of the iPhone and what it has kicked off will render services like SMS and MMS obsolete.

Why send a 50c picture message when you can just directly send the image to your friends iPhone in a variety of ways that will only result in the data charge and not some ridiculous messaging overhead.

last edited by Dan at 16:35:34 10/Jan/08

Reading the wired article sort of explains why its taking so long and goes some way to mollifying my impatience about not having an SDK for launch - they're doing something that noone has ever done before, which is almost certainly going to result in the loss of a significant revenue stream for the typical mobile phone carrier.

I don't quite understand how this resulting in a loss for carriers (which I don't fully understand) and the locking down of development, software, carrier and hell, even the unlocked iphones in france only work with carriers located in france, sort of tie together... butt least things will hopefully get a little better with an sdk of some sort. The way I read it is that they rushed it, and were greedy and wanted a revenue sharing deal with a provider to help offset some of the initial costs, and it just plain wasn't fully ready.

Why send a 50c picture message when you can just directly send the image to your friends iPhone in a variety of ways that will only result in the data charge and not some ridiculous messaging overhead.

That is definately how things are going, except for not everyone having an iphone/rich mail client on a phone like the iphone has yet (fortunately you can send mms through a third party app and just browse to your providers website that receives mms). Unfortunately the data charges are insanely expensive in australia that sending an mms is mostly cheaper, as opposed to unlimited data plans like at&t and other iphone providers offer. Hell, in one european country they boycotted a carrier because they didn't provide unlimited data ... could you ever see that happening here?

As much as I'm not an apple fan I love my iPhone, but mostly because of the third party stuff ... and that should have been handled better I think, and not cut off and locked out at every twist and turn by their updates.

Also, http://www.tuaw.com/2008/01/08/ea-mobile-prez-iphone-is-hurting-mobile-game-development/

last edited by eXemplar at 17:18:37 10/Jan/08

i think a valid point is that if you owned an iphone you'd have no friends to mms

Ill believe the part about spending more time on the carriers network when they released the HSDPA model.

I am tempted to get one, but it will be when they have decent exchange connectivity and HSDPA

Posting from my new HTC Windows Mobile 6 smart phone.

I couldn't be happier with it. Even if it available, for the price I doubt I would have gone for an iphone over a wm device...

waiting for iPhone II with 3g / 3.5g capability and a hard disk

til then my nokia 6120 glued to my ipod will have to do

Reasons why the iPhone isn't as good as a normal phone.

ITS NOT 3G, let alone HSDPA
YOU CAN'T USE MP3's AS RINGTONES
ITS ONLY AVAILABLE ON ONE CARRIER - for us this will most probably be Telstra
YOU CAN'T SEND MMS's
Oh, and one of the biggest... YOU CAN'T USE JAVA APPS!!! (thats correct, right?)

The phone isn't groundbreaking, other than the fact it has a pretty good touch based input system. In fact, if you take away the big screen and the touch interface, what does it really have at all?

last edited by mongie at 19:32:28 10/Jan/08

I'm sorry, I don't read caps.

it has safari

Jailbreak. Nuff said. though u shouldnt have to - which in turn ruins my argument >(

it has safari

Most (non-pda at least) phone browser are utter s***. Full stop. Safari doesnt try to cut down the website into a crappily rendered piece of s***e like nokia browsers and other phone browsers.

last edited by ³dee at 19:47:59 10/Jan/08

Most (non-pda at least) phone browser are utter s***. Full stop. Safari doesnt try to cut down the website into a crappily rendered piece of s***e like nokia browsers and other phone browsers.

The browser on my n95 is awesome, doesn't rape the pages at all.

get an n82 or n95 black.

The n95 'Black' is (as far as I'm aware) the 8GB version, which doesn't have a slot for microSD cards. Not a good one to go for, imo.

Great read - thanks trog

why would u need more than 8gb? thats the largest capacity in a phone on the market atm?

In case you want to store lots of movies on it or something? I dunno, I can't see a downside to having an expandable SDHC compatible storage slot on a portable media device.

YOU CAN'T USE MP3's AS RINGTONES
ITS ONLY AVAILABLE ON ONE CARRIER - for us this will most probably be Telstra
YOU CAN'T SEND MMS's
Oh, and one of the biggest... YOU CAN'T USE JAVA APPS!!! (thats correct, right?)

can use mp3s as ringtones
can use any carrier with a gprs/edge network, vodafone/optus etc
can actually send mms with a third party app
can actually use java apps, there was one or two custom jvm's compiled to run on it (with some gui issues ... but hacked together stuff)
the only real killer is the 3g networks...

Personally, I like it for the sshd/vt100 term in my pocket, even runs bash. I use that heaps and there's a tonne of bsd/linux tools being ported that' i'd usually have to remote to some other pc somewhere to use (even vnc, how many mobile phones run that).

and this is all third party hacked together stuff without a proper sdk ... can't wait to see some of the stuff developed with this, it's only gonna get better.

The phone isn't groundbreaking, other than the fact it has a pretty good touch based input system. In fact, if you take away the big screen and the touch interface, what does it really have at all?

Well, I thought the article was sort of clear on that - its the first time that a phone provider has been able to force the telcos to do something their way. It doesn't sound like that big a deal, I guess because we're all so used to getting screwed by telcos on mobiles, mobile content and mobile data - but I think it will be. I'm looking forward to Android even more though because for the first time we might have a free an open phone.

To me the key point of the article was that Apple are trying to change the game so that instead of paying the ridiculous excess on mobile fees (20c/SMS, wtf), we can treat the telco we use like we do our ISP - just a simple carrier of data that we can do whatever we want with. This is certainly part of what Android is about as well - Google know everyone has mobiles, and wants to get them the f*** connected to the internet so they start using Google services more and more (seriously, how many times have you been out and about and wished you could just look something up).

I think this thing is a real paradigm shift, so much so that it's hard to get interested or excited about because its almost not possible to imagine a world like that where you can do what you want with your mobile device - as if it was a PC - and you're not tied down to what the telcos want you to do with it and their ridiculous pricing schemes.

On the iPhone:

The phone isn't groundbreaking, other than the fact it has a pretty good touch based input system. In fact, if you take away the big screen and the touch interface, what does it really have at all?

What you're saying here is, "other than the groundbreaking stuff in the iPhone, what does it have that's groundbreaking!?!?!"

I haven't got/used an iPhone but I do have an iPod touch. I'm not gonna say its an awesome device, because I don't think it is - but I can't deny the interface is really, really slick, and really intuitive. The Safari browser takes web browsing on a mobile device from being a painful waste of time to being an almost-pleasant experience - especially with sites like Gmail and Facebook that have taken the time to build iPhone interfaces for them (QGL/AusGamers version is planned too as soon as I find some sucker to read the iPhone docs).

The thing that concerns me is that currently, the overpriced services like SMS are a massive cash cow for mobile providers. They charge 20c or whatever it is for a micro amount of data and we're all used to it.

Now telcos don't like to lose revenue streams, so once the model changes and people are sending MSN messages with .0001c of their data plan instead of a 20c SMS, what's going to get more expensive?

last edited by Dan at 11:19:31 11/Jan/08

Apparently Steve Jobs was really pissed off with AT&T's forcefulness in their phone deals and wants to burn them to the ground. I think some of the limitations of the iPhone were actually AT&T's fault, not Apple's... I read something like it somewhere and, no, I can't back it up with a link.

And I thought the SDK was already out but the software won't be released till Feb?

Sorry - this is what I was thinking of...

The iPhone Dev Center is your single source of information for designing, coding, and optimizing web applications for iPhone and iPod touch. ADC Members can log in to access the iPhone Dev Center, if you're not an ADC Member, sign up for a free Online Membership today.

Yeh that thing is just so you can make web pages that look good and work well on the iPhone.

can use any carrier with a gprs/edge network, vodafone/optus etc

Telstra run the only edge network in Australia and gprs is pretty s***.

Not that i'm supporting the providers but i can remember the provider arguments against open source phone platforms and a lot of the angst was because if you don't do everything just right you f*** up entire networks.

Having heard about what happens in the UQ ITEE subject where the students create hardware drivers for am IP based phone... i'm not willing to call them liars on the matter.