iPhone! Introducing your new mobile phone - mobile everything

[Brian Austin]

The reason I haven't done it yet isn't that I can't, it's that it's WORK. For something as stupid as a custom ringtone, I'm not going to waste 5 minutes for each person in my address book who I want to have a custom tone for. So, despite the fact that I really wanted this feature when I was phone-shopping, I don't use it. "Inaccessible?" Not exactly. But, it's not nearly as easy as it SHOULD be.

Not really much issue here. In My Documents, there is a folder called [PDA Name]_PDA My Documents. Everything in there gets sync'd to the PDA, automatically. I store ringtones in a subfolder in there so I don't have to manually move them.

Then it's just a matter of look up contact, edit contact, scroll to "ringtone" and pick it from a dropdown list.

Oh...and it can be ANY playable file on a Pocket PC.

I just checked Outlook 2007's (yes, I already switched at the office) options but it isn't available on there...yet. It wouldn't surprise me to see it added in the future for automatic sync.

My point is that you've limited yourself on the possibilities by automatically dismissing anything that doesn't say "Apple" from comparable features. Is it going to be exact? Probably not. And you're just speculating ANYWAY since no one has seen an iPhone up close and no details have been released by Apple.

The irony is that the same ironfisted control of the OS and distribution that Mac-addicts complained about with Microsoft is practiced regularly at Apple. Probably even MORE so with their crackdown on anyone saying "bad things" about them that others have blogged. And even more ironic is that more and more Apple bugs and security issues are being found...yet get little press or acknowledgement. Granted, most of them are proof of concept but it's still happening.

Open your eyes. Apple is growing up and is going to come under some serious scrutiny this year for a LOT of different aspects of their company. DRM, security, product diversification, etc., will all be watched very closely by Wall Street. The idea of a bunch of hippies working on the next greatest thing is gone. They're turning into their own version of the Borg. You just can't see it yet.

 

[Brian Austin]

How so? What, in Windows95, hadn't already been done?

Sit on tens of millions of desktops and educate the masses on GUI-based operating systems.

 

[ReverendSlappy]

How long have you been around?

MICROSOFT WROTE NONE OF MS-DOS (until versions above 2.0) which Windows 95 was built on. Even the company they bought MS-DOS from didn't write it. The guy cross compiled CP/M-80 to make Seattle DOS which Microsoft bought for a one time payment of $50,000.

AT&T wrote most of Unix, but it couldn't do TCP/IP until a bunch of hippies at Berkeley wrote that. A lot of modern, robust, systems besides OS X like the ones at banks and the ones in government datacenters that hold secrets and bust secrets and launch missles are built on UNIX.

No company that sells it "wrote most of it."

IBM and other companies are "selling" Linux now which is just as robust as Unix. No one person wrote any significant part of that.

THAT Berkeley code, BTW, became the TCP stack in Windows up to Windows 2000. Microsoft didn't write that either. Windows 95 didn't ship with TCP/IP.

And the company that was ripped off in the first place, Digital Research, had a really fine GUI OS called GEM long before Windows 95 came out and introduced the world to the blue screen.

I certainly don't mean to make this a Microsoft-Apple comparison debate, nor did I mean to imply that most software doesn't borrow and steal from other software, especially when it comes to OSes. My point is that, in my opinion, Apple doesn't have the most stellar history of developing software, and the software is what is going to be more tested in the iPhone than it has been with the iPod. They've done good with OS X, but I was just not impressed with much of anything they did before it. And like I said earlier too, if it really is OS X on the iPhone, and it's built using the same "on top of XNU" or whatever architecture, then I'm less skeptical.

 

[ReverendSlappy]

Mike pointed out one side of this. I'll point out that Apple didn't do the iPod OS either.

Good point.

How so? What, in Windows95, hadn't already been done?

See Brian's post above.

Seriously, though, getting PCs in front of millions upon millions of people is what advanced the industry as much as -- if not more than -- anything else. Apple did that initially in the 80's and very early 90's, and Microsoft did it in the mid-90's. Apple just wasn't as big a player then, and that's when most of it happened. Was Apple doing cool stuff? More advanced technology? Perhaps. But at the end of the day, Microsoft introduced more people to PCs than Apple did during that period of time -- and probably even more than Apple had at any point prior. Windows 95 wasn't the end-all-be-all of operating systems by any stretch of the imagination (which is to say it was crap), but it was good enough. Good enough to, most importantly, put it in front of tons of people, on a scale that hadn't been done before. And that's huge in terms of advancing personal computing as a whole.

I can certainly understand that. Trust me, it'd be playing in my head until I could actually get home and listen to it!

Yeah, it's super frustrating. If Apple comes up with something that scratches that particular itch, I'll buy whatever product does it.

According to Wikipedia, there are still folks using them, and there have been drivers written for WiFi cards and the like. I had no idea.

Supposedly, the Newton 2000 and 2100 were really super-slick gizmos, but I never really got to play with one. (I owned a 130 at one point.) They weren't out for long before Jobs came back, and the Newton was the first thing to get "Steved." The Newton had been the idea of John Sculley, the Apple CEO who Jobs originally hired, who then turned around and fired Jobs a couple of years later. The demise of the Newton, unfortunately, was nothing more than Jobs' grudge against Sculley.

That's what I always heard too... When I was issued a Compaq iPaq way back in the day, some Mac people I knew were like "Ehh, it's cool I guess. But it ain't no Newton." I never touched one myself, unfortunately.

I knew you were gonna say that. Which is why I inserted the words personal and consumer. Unix is not a good end-user type of OS.

Heh, you walked right into that one. But yeah, that wasn't really a fair comparison. And no, there isn't a *nix variant out there worth putting in front of a consumer -- no matter what those loony Linux hippie freaks would have you believe.

Ah yes. You probably know how it is... Apple people used to sing Apple's praises to the world, and then turn around and ***** and moan about them when no non-Apple people were around.

Heh, yeah. I think that's another difference between Apple and Microsoft people: Microsoft people will ***** about Microsoft to anybody. I mean they've got plenty to say, right?

That's just the point, though... Other companies generally do not have products with the same features, quality, and usability as Apple does. Sure, someone gets something right now and then, but Apple is a lot more consistent. That's why we love 'em...

I'd say they've certainly been consistent for the last 8 or so years for sure. I guess my feeling of vague skepticism comes from the gaping hole in their history that was the mid-90's.

Sounds like they belong on an episode of VH1's Behind The Music, doesn't it?

Heh, like the Leif Garrett one, perhaps?

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Then it's just a matter of look up contact, edit contact, scroll to "ringtone" and pick it from a dropdown list.

Right, and that's more than half the battle on my phone. Again, it's not hard, it's time-consuming and definitely not elegant.

My point is that you've limited yourself on the possibilities by automatically dismissing anything that doesn't say "Apple" from comparable features.

I'm not automatically dismissing others, I'm just saying that I've come to expect Apple to get things mostly right a lot more often than most others. If I feel an iPhone is the right thing for me in another year when my contract is up, I might get one. If not, I'll probably get another Sony Ericsson as I've been generally happy with this one, even if it's not from Apple.

The irony is that the same ironfisted control of the OS and distribution that Mac-addicts complained about with Microsoft is practiced regularly at Apple.

Huh? (What do Mac people complain about, that is?)

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Sit on tens of millions of desktops and educate the masses on GUI-based operating systems.

Doh! *slap* You've got me there...

I will say, Win95 was the first OS from MS that I really consider to be complete and well-done, in the grand scheme of all things Windows. It certainly made the "dark side" PC accessible to the masses for the first time.

Of course, I still agree with the good ol' "Windows95 = Macintosh 88" bumper sticker.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Heh, you walked right into that one. But yeah, that wasn't really a fair comparison. And no, there isn't a *nix variant out there worth putting in front of a consumer -- no matter what those loony Linux hippie freaks would have you believe.

Actually, a Windows-freak friend of mine (yeah, I have those kinds of friends too ) has switched to Linux on his laptop - He said it was something from Red Hat but it's not called Red Hat - and it was VERY slick-looking. It even had the multiple-workspace feature that Apple announced for OS X 10.5 which isn't out yet.

That's not to say it's something I'd put in front of my mother, but I was impressed.

 

[Brian Austin]

Regarding the trademark stuff: apparently Jobs just doesn't care. He makes a habit of it, even ignoring legal advice...

http://blog.wired.com/cultofmac/2007/01/steve_jobs_trad.html

 

[jesse]

If they themselves don't trust their developers to the point that they had them NOT write more than half of OS X, there's no reason I should trust them to put out a quality piece of software either.

So just because Apple decided that there was no point in reinventing the wheel and decided to use a proven product for the core of their operating system that means they cannot write software?

Seriously--WTF?

There is no reason to be constantly reinventing the wheel in the software industry. Do you have any idea the level of complication, code, testing, and time that must be put into developing something like OS X? It makes way more business sense to use what already works.

 

[KennyFlys]

Jobs may have been pushy and taking risk by the grabbing of other names but I don't see "Management and Computer Services Inc" becoming the next "International Business Machines" with just an acronym. They don't even show up with a Google search.

Likewise, I doubt McIntosh was ever in danger. I'm sure they have been heard of by very few outside the industry. Or, the occasional customer who can afford a single-channel audio amplifier selling at ten grand.

I used to be an avid Mac user but went to the other side. Kent might say I went to "the dark side of the force."

 

[mikea]

Jobs may have been pushy and taking risk by the grabbing of other names but I don't see "Management and Computer Services Inc" becoming the next "International Business Machines" with just an acronym. They don't even up with a Google search.

Likewise, I doubt McIntosh was ever in danger. I'm sure they have been heard of by very few outside the industry. Or, the occasional customer who can afford a single-channel audio amplifier selling at ten grand.

I used to be an avid Mac user but went to the other side. Kent might say I went to "the dark side of the force."

The way I remember at the time there was a L-O-N-G period of time where Apple users said, "I'm waiting for Macintosh." I think it was known for at least a year or two that the new Apple would be called Macintosh. What wasn't known for sure was what it would look like. I think it was known that it was based on the Lisa.

Remember that the 1984 commerical ran once, during Superbowl (January) 1984 announcing Macintosh was coming in April.

Apple didn't have the secrecy then like they do now. I think the NSA might want to investigate how Apple pulled off keeping the iPhone as secret as was.

One reason for the secrecy might be that Steve saw what happened to Osborne in 1983. I remember that the handful of Osborne employees were on "60 Minutes" answering "Yes" when Morley said they all were going to be millionaires. The company went bankrupt in less than a year.

 

[Brian Austin]

Jobs may have been pushy and taking risk by the grabbing of other names but I don't see "Management and Computer Services Inc" becoming the next "International Business Machines" with just an acronym. They don't even up with a Google search.

It's irrelevant as far as trademarks are concerned, though. They had it first. Obviously SOMEONE agreed with them since Apple settled, knowing they were violating someone else's legal trademark.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

I used to be an avid Mac user but went to the other side. Kent might say I went to "the dark side of the force."

That's pretty accurate, yes.

So, why DID you go to the dark side? Hmmm, lemme guess... Games.

 

[KennyFlys]

That's pretty accurate, yes.

So, why DID you go to the dark side? Hmmm, lemme guess... Games.

Nope... there was no decent mapping/GPS software available for the Mac. And, I was able to expand a lot cheaper when it came to storage and getting other machines that used the same software.

A while back, I found all the floppies I had copied the games to from one of my first external drives for a Mac Plus. I tossed them. The drive is still laying around somewhere. I have a Mac LC I'd love to boot up for the heck of it but I don't think any of my monitors would handle it. Heck, I'd even put it on the network but there's no card available for it!

I never did get into games!

Oh well....

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Nope... there was no decent mapping/GPS software available for the Mac.

Google Maps to the rescue.

Garmin announced a while back that they're porting all of their stuff to Mac OS X. I haven't checked lately to see how far they've gotten, as the only thing I ever do is to update the maps and software on my Garmin 2620.

And, I was able to expand a lot cheaper when it came to storage

Huh? Or was this in the bad ol' days when Macs were SCSI only?

A while back, I found all the floppies I had copied the games to from one of my first external drives for a Mac Plus. I tossed them.

Noooooooooooooo!

I still have a zillion floppies from the 80's. I have 3.5" ones with classic (and amazingly good for their time) games such as Dark Castle. I even have some 5.25" Apple ][ floppies with things like Moon Patrol and the very very old, original Mario Brothers game. (That was it - Mario Brothers. No super. No scrolling either.)

Now if I could only get some of my old computers to actually work.

 

[mikea]

Nope... there was no decent mapping/GPS software available for the Mac. And, I was able to expand a lot cheaper when it came to storage and getting other machines that used the same software.

A while back, I found all the floppies I had copied the games to from one of my first external drives for a Mac Plus. I tossed them. The drive is still laying around somewhere. I have a Mac LC I'd love to boot up for the heck of it but I don't think any of my monitors would handle it. Heck, I'd even put it on the network but there's no card available for it!

I never did get into games!

Oh well....

I've got the former neighbor's LC AND monitor which I never tried to boot. I'm curious because I never had an one of that vintage. If I continue my packrat recovery it'll go to the city computer dump and not my personal computer museum. The odds for each are 70-30. Like you, I'd be more inclined to keep it if it could go on the home network.

 

[KennyFlys]

I've got the former neighbor's LC AND monitor which I never tried to boot. I'm curious because I never had an one of that vintage. If I continue my packrat recovery it'll go to the city computer dump and not my personal computer museum. The odds for each are 70-30. Like you, I'd be more inclined to keep it if it could go on the home network.

Heck, I'd throw it up with web access just to monitor weather. But, even if I had a network card for it I doubt the browser availability would handle any of those web sites. I don't even know what IE version was in use at that time. The last I had even used it was in 1996. I think the AOL version at the time was V.4 for Macs. I'm certain it would be worthless for any weather site operating recent Java applications.

So, even if I could fire it up and get on the web... it still might be worthless. I almost wish I had give it away and not my Mac Plus. At least it was an icon that makes for a real conversation piece. And, a great aquarium or terrarium! Not bad for an item that cost me $1600... in 1989.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Heck, I'd throw it up with web access just to monitor weather. But, even if I had a network card for it I doubt the browser availability would handle any of those web sites. I don't even know what IE version was in use at that time. The last I had even used it was in 1996. I think the AOL version at the time was V.4 for Macs. I'm certain it would be worthless for any weather site operating recent Java applications.

Hmmm. Well, I'm pretty sure even the old Mac LC could run Mac OS 9.x. Combine that with whatever Netscape there was (**** IE), and I'm sure you could do some level of Java, though not the latest and greatest.

So, even if I could fire it up and get on the web... it still might be worthless. I almost wish I had give it away and not my Mac Plus. At least it was an icon that makes for a real conversation piece. And, a great aquarium or terrarium! Not bad for an item that cost me $1600... in 1989.

Hey come on, the LC makes a good pizza box.

The LC wasn't so much of an icon as the Plus, but it was one of the better-selling models of the non-Jobs era. There were a TON of them in schools. I have fond memories of having a substitute teacher for a programming class once who wasn't worth much. Just as the bell rang at the end of class, thirty LC's started singing a chorus of "99 bottles of beer on the wall..."

 

[gprellwitz]

Actually, a Windows-freak friend of mine (yeah, I have those kinds of friends too ) has switched to Linux on his laptop - He said it was something from Red Hat but it's not called Red Hat - and it was VERY slick-looking. It even had the multiple-workspace feature that Apple announced for OS X 10.5 which isn't out yet.

That's not to say it's something I'd put in front of my mother, but I was impressed.

What are we talking about here? Fedora Core?

 

[mikea]

What are we talking about here? Fedora Core?

Ubuntu? http://www.ubuntu.com/

Ubuntu is not Red Hat. It's Debian, except they release the updates in less than a decade. Debian has had problems since the coordinator got paid. The unpaid developers walked away and did other things.

 

[ReverendSlappy]

Ubuntu? http://www.ubuntu.com/

Ubuntu is not Red Hat. It's Debian, except they release the updates in less than a decade. Debian has had problems since the coordinator got paid. The unpaid developers walked away and did other things.

I actually ran Ubuntu Server for a period of time for my home network NAS box (just shy of 1TB of RAID-5 lovin'... makes me smile just thinkin' about it). I liked it enough... Nothing too snazzy, IMHO (the desktop version seems to be good too, but also just isn't quite there IMHO) but -- as is the case with most Linux variants -- it just worked, and worked well. Ultimately, I decided I needed more than one 2K3 server if I wanted to run everything (Exchange, DNS, web, AD, etc.) reliably, so I ended up putting Windows Server on that box. But I'd probably run Ubuntu again if I come across some spare hardware. Good stuff.

 

[jesse]

What are we talking about here? Fedora Core?

It could have been either Fedora Core, or perhaps CentOS. There are also hundreds of other ports of the RedHat tree. Who knows.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

What are we talking about here? Fedora Core?

I can't remember... I'll ask him. I think there was maybe some additional software doing the windowing tricks.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

It could have been either Fedora Core

You called it dude.

I am running Fedora Core 6. The 3-d affects may be enabled at system->preferences->desktop effects. If he has an nvidia card, he should use the proprietary driver. For an ATI card, use the open source drivers. I highly recommend Nvidia, as the ATI drivers are buggy and unstable, and may cause the gui to lock up. Intel cards are supposed to work too, but I have never tried them.

I recommend that using both "fedora extras" and "liva" for repositories http://rpm.livna.org/. Livna provides properly configured nvidia drivers, the totem-xine package for multimedia, as well as various codecs and tools.

Also note, that while fedora is mostly cutting edge, the Fedora team does not support Firefox 2.0. If he wants firefox 2.0, he will have to uninstall firefox 1.5, and then install firefox 2.0 from the Mozilla website.

Fedora uses the "yum" command for package management. For example, to install amarok, simply run "yum install amarok" from the command line. The program, including all of its dependencies are automatically resolved, downloaded, and installed. (Or he may go to applications-> add or remove software, and search for amarok).

Fedora Core 6 is a free product sponsored by Red Hat. The successful features in Fedora are usually ported to Red Hat Enterprise Linux at some point.

BTW - No additional software is needed for the 3-D affects. For the curious, Fedora uses the Compiz window manager running on AIGLX (Accelerated Indirect OpenGL) running on top of xorg.

 

[gprellwitz]

You called it dude.

Um, actually, I called it. (And this ipost is to increase my count so I'll some day be able to dream about being in competition with you and Tony!

 

[ScottM]

Got this in my email today

Apple Recalls iPhone; Forgot to Include 'Phone' Feature

Jobs: Oops

In what could prove to be the most embarrassing misstep in consumer electronics history, Apple Inc. announced today that it would recall its entire production run of the Apple iPhone after discovering that it had failed to include a "phone" feature in the much-hyped handheld device.

Speaking from Apple corporate headquarters, company founder Steve Jobs offered consumers his apology for the monumental goof and seemed to be searching for an explanation for how it could have occurred.

"First and foremost, we're sorry," a red-faced Mr. Jobs said in a conference call with Wall Street analysts. "When you make a product called the iPhone, people expect it to include a phone, and we messed that part up."

Mr. Jobs suggested that Apple had been so focused on making the iPhone the "coolest handheld device ever" that it had forgotten to include one of the most important features of any cellular phone: "One thing people like about cell phones is that you can dial numbers into them and call people."

Instead, he explained, Apple's engineers had crammed the iPhone with a plethora of what he called "non-phonal features," such as a camera, an
MP3 player, a taser, and a tactical nuclear weapon.

While Mr. Jobs said that almost all of the nine million iPhones that had been shipped to stores were on their way back to Apple's manufacturing plant, he offered advice to consumers who somehow had already obtained the phoneless iPhone: "Just hold it up to your head and pretend to be talking into it."

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Got this in my email today

Now that right there is funny!