Obligatory iPhone thread

[Marek]

I want one.

Ron Gilbert says it well: "Apple's new iPhone is the closest thing I've seen to the future promised to me by 30 years of reading Science Fiction and wishing I lived on the Enterprise."

[qdqwdd]

It's really cool, and kinda spooky, last week I've dreamt of a touch screen only phone/pda/mp3...

It's the first time an Apple device looks interesting to me. Good for them

[miffy495]

It is pretty cool, but man will that thing get banged up fast. I dunno 'bout you guys, but my phone stays in my pocket most of the time. Right next to my keys, pocket knife, and occasionally a pen or two. When I'm at work, there's a flashlight in there. I've never bought a phone that isn't clamshell as a result, as otherwise the screen would get shredded by the various pocket debris I have. The iPhone looks sweet, but unfortunately my pocket is not really a safe environment for it.

[chunks]

sounds like what i've always been looking for in a phone, but like miffy said... doesn't look to be the most durable thing in the world.

[Jake]

I've had two iPods, and both have become fairly beat up from living in my pocket... but hey guess what... it's an iPod. I use it all the time. It's not going to look like it came out of the box forever... that's not the point. Both iPods looked great for the first year, then got a bit scuffed, then maybe a huge gash appeared, but they both still work (my original one's headphone jack is finally starting to chip beyond use, after 5 years of ownership, the first 4 years of which it was being used for hours a day). If you're worried about things you use getting scuffed, the simple solution is to either not buy them or not use them. Scary "it has to stay mint" tech fetishes have to end. An iPhone is not a collectible, it's a tool.

[miffy495]

I realize that. Believe me, my phones and iPods and various portable game systems have taken their share of beatings over the years. Thing is, the iPhone has a touch screen. An unprotected touch screen. That's not so good. I don't care if a normal screen takes a few scuffs during its lifetime, but a touchscreen needs to stay in pretty good shape to maintain usefulness. So yeah, tech doesn't have to stay pristine, but an iPhone's primary interface seems a bit too easy to fuck up for my tastes.

[Marek]

A friend of mine saw the iPhone announcements and said he'd never buy one because of fingerprints or smudges on the screen. Then he saw a line saying "just wipe the screen with your sleeve" from an NYTimes article and said "see, what if you have just one bit of sand on your sleeve? you'll have a scratch".

This I do not understand. (Hear hear Jake.)

[hermes]

There should be a term for the amount of time it takes before you are willing to accept scracthes and other signs of wear and tear on gadgets (or anything new for that matter). If something is new and shiny and you scratch it on day one - you really get annoyed. But as time goes by, the image of you owning this thing sinks into a part of your reality-perception where you accept that things get scratched. (Excerpt from my new book: "Gadget-psychology - The one true Path" (not really))

[Marek]

It's called the tipping point.

I am reading The Tipping Point. Everything I see is a tipping point.

[Roderick]

Yeah, I really dislike those first few tarnishes on my tools. Then it switches to a feeling that the rustier it is, the more personality it has.

Touch screens not included by the way; those are just annoying to have scratched and you feel the decreased smoothness. But nevertheless, I'm always quite careful with my equipment. I like to keep it as shiny as possible. If that makes me anal, so be it I just like things to be in proper condition.

[Nachimir]

I'm happy to keep stuff in other pockets, and as a result generally avoid scratched devices for a lot longer. But yeah, it's the first few that are the most annoying.

One reason I like to keep things in good condition is that I sell them when I upgrade, rather than having, say, a drawer full of old phones.

A piece I read on the iPhone said "glass", not plastic, so it might be as hard to scratch as a watch... though very easy to smash I forsee a lot of spares or repairs one turning up on eBay.

It's certainly exciting, but it remains to be seen if it will actually make sense/utility of mobile web.

[DanJW]

It's called the tipping point.

I am reading The Tipping Point. Everything I see is a tipping point.

Oh man, I love that book. You're right, it does change the way you see just about everything. Then you go insane.

[Wrestlevania]

Found this earlier and thought it gave a good impression of how the phone works, without the Steve Jobs Wankathon aforehand:

My consumer gland forewarns it'll be approx £349 with a contract here in the UK, which I suppose isn't so outrageous considering what you actually get. I'm worried as to which bastard carrier we'll be forced to take with it when we buy though...

[Marek]

Oh man, I love that book. You're right, it does change the way you see just about everything. Then you go insane.

I also just read The Long Tail, and will read the Selfish Gene after The Tipping Point. I've set my mind up for total owning.

[Wrestlevania]

I also just read The Long Tail, and will read the Selfish Gene after The Tipping Point. I've set my mind up for total owning.

I read an extract from Cialdini's Influence at lunchtime today and that looks like a fascinating read, too.

[Nachimir]

I've set my mind up for total owning.

If you'd like some further ownage, The Cathedral and The Bazaar (Print edition at Amazon) is extremely worth reading. It's about OSS and hacker culture, but applicable to any kind of culture getting on a network and open sourcing its methods.

Back to gadgets: There are materials and finishes they could use to make them last a lot longer without scuffing or scratching. If gadget makers did that though, they'd have less leverage when trying to get people to buy the next generation of techgasm widgets.

[Marek]

I've got Cialdini's book right here on my bookshelf. I remember the anecdotes were sometimes longer than they had to be, but hey, you can always skip a little.

I read excerpts of The Cathedral and The Bazaar in college but I never read the whole book. I'll remember that one.

(On the off-topic of books, I have to tell you to take a look at The Art of Looking Sideways. You can read about it in detail on Amazon, so I'll just say it's the best book I own. It's unrelated to any of the books previously mentioned here but I'm pretty sure anyone here would like it.)

[Jake]

Saw the iPhone at Macworld today. It looked like the iPhone. Awesome.

[Coldkill]

Cisco Systems is sueing Apple for using the name iPhone. Since they own the copyright to the name and since there is already one out for sale.

All I can say is rofl to that. Apply should've done their homework

Cold

[Jayel]

I hear nothing of what kind of games iPhone is capable of? It'd be awesome to see some games that utilize its motion sensors.

[Wrestlevania]

I hear nothing of what kind of games iPhone is capable of? It'd be awesome to see some games that utilize its motion sensors.

Definitely.

It'd be great if the iPhone detected complete rotation, i.e. 12 'o' clock (vertical) through 3 'o' clock (horizontal to right), 6 'o' clock (upside down) and 9 'o' clock (horizontal to left, which it already does). You could make some great games with that, especially puzzles.

[Marek]

Yes. Also, if phone interfaces are going to be this good from now on, I see a very healthy future for alternate reality games and mobile MMOs. Sadly the rumors of iPhone having a GPS receiver weren't true.

[Jake]

Also the rumor of Apple not releasing any APIs / SDKs / What-have-you's for the iPhone are also true. They're taking the same approach to 3rd party iPhone software as they do to 3rd party games on iPods, and pretty much all content sold through the iTunes store: You can't, unless we let you. From some iPhone-related interviews with Steve Jobs it sounds like Apple will be keeping a very tight lid on what gets made and released software-wise for the iPhone, because they don't want people mucking stuff up.

[LOPcagney]

Yeah, I really dislike those first few tarnishes on my tools. Then it switches to a feeling that the rustier it is, the more personality it has.

Speaking of tarnishes, I heard the PS3 collects dust as though it were it's primary purpose of existence. Scratches too.

Now, with the obligatory disappointed finger-wag at Sony, I think the phone looks cool, but to some extent, how much do you really need?

I'm not so excited about it, just because it's going to be so damn expensive.

[Marek]

The thing with iPhone is that my current slightly old Sony Ericsson does everything it does except for video playback. A lot of people talk about features exclusively (e.g. 90% of the commentors on Ron Gilbert's blog) and most of the time they are right.

But the point is that iPhone actually makes the features easy to use. It makes it so easy and inviting that you'll actually use all those features. There's things on my phone that I haven't used since the first month I had it because it's hidden behind countless menus which in turn are hidden behind a completely broken interface.

For instance, I have NEVER made a conference call, even though I could. The reason is that it's super uncomfortable to set up on a regular phone. And I'm not a technology noob, so know-how has nothing to do with it.

A collegue of mine put it this way: when people intend to buy a car, some of them will get all the lists of specs they can get and pick the one with the most features for the least money. Others imagine themselves driving the cars. The same is true for phones and for computers.