Apple iPhone and related items (cont.)

[elbows]

Lots of talk about iPhone OS 4 announcement on Thursday. Too much talk to dismiss it.

No venue booked though... Strange timing and proceedings.

Multitasking is being widely speculated. Hope so. There's a few media playing thingies that aren't much cop without it.

The exact features of iPhone OS 4 are speculation but that there is an event on Thursday is a certainty, media invitations say its at the 'Town Hall' on Apples own campus.

As for the timing, I dont think its too surprising really, its new phone hardware that people expect to stick to the yearly summer release schedule, and whilst the OS often gets updated at about the same time, its not odd for some details of it to be given months before.

I suppose its also possible that Apple think that talking about OS 4 now will boost iPad sales and may help them to keep selling lots of existing iphone models rather than silence drawing attention to upcoming iphone hardware that could make some people delay their iphone purchasing decision.

 

[Lazy Llama]

Lots of talk about iPhone OS 4 announcement on Thursday. Too much talk to dismiss it.

No venue booked though... Strange timing and proceedings.

Thursday, April 8, at 10:00 Pacific Time at the Town Hall on Apple’s Cupertino campus - http://theappleblog.com/2010/04/05/iphone-os-4-event-announced/

 

[Kid_Eternity]

This does seemed to have come out of the blue a bit...interested to see what they got coming up...

 

[paolo]

I stand, very clearly, corrected on the venue front

Looking forward to this.

 

[elbows]

If anything its overdue, the iPad got in the way of the schedule a bit and the iphone OS 4 preview is later than the OS 3 one was (which I think happened in March last year)

 

[Sunray]

This is way more interesting to me than any talk of crappy iPad announcements.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

It's not that interesting, because all they will do is announce a load of upgrades to make the iPhone on a par with what other smartphones had last year

 

[ChrisFilter]

It's not that interesting, because all they will do is announce a load of upgrades to make the iPhone on a par with what other smartphones had last year

True. But it'll do them all better.

They need to step up however. The Desire will be my next phone ATM when I upgrade in December.

 

[editor]

It's not that interesting, because all they will do is announce a load of upgrades to make the iPhone on a par with what other smartphones had last year

They've got to look sharp about it too, because while Apple's market smartphone share has stopped growing, Android is rising very fast and becoming a real contender.

Only Blackberry and Android registered market share gains over the Nov 09 - Feb 10 period. Apple's share actually went down.

http://www.wirefresh.com/android-scores-huge-gains-in-the-us-iphone-stalls/

 

[Kid_Eternity]

All good news, competition is what the market needs...

 

[Refused as fuck]

And every worker has a share!

 

[grit]

Whats exciting me about this announcement is that we may actually get a half decent debate going now

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Does anyone else see Facebook when they look at that image? Dunno why but when I first saw it the colour just reminded me of FB and I could see the image pulling back to reveal the FB 'F'...

 

[Sunray]

It's not that interesting, because all they will do is announce a load of upgrades to make the iPhone on a par with what other smartphones had last year

Since the 2G came out, all the competitors have had 3 years to compete with Apple and have done pretty much fuck all pushing the smart phone genre apart from spending all that time working out how to copy Apple.

Only Palm has actually done something that can genuinely be considered pushing the envelope with regard to smart phone feature sets.

Capacitive multi-touch screens, flick scrolling, pinch zoom, home screen with loads of App icons, you name it, everyone's copied it without a second thought towards doing something better.

Palm aside, name a single feature on any smart phone that's new and innovative?

 

[editor]

Palm aside, name a single feature on any smart phone that's new and innovative?

Yes. Android was first to include a digital compass and the first to introduce properly integrated augmented reality apps.

 

[pboi]

that thing where you can type without taking your finger off the screen?

 

[editor]

that thing where you can type without taking your finger off the screen?

That'll be Swype.

Back on iphones - and it hurts me to say this - but the Sky news app has been updated with some excellent election coverage.

 

[Sunray]

Yes. Android was first to include a digital compass and the first to introduce properly integrated augmented reality apps.

The Apps arn't what I was talking about because they weren't created by the Phone manufacturers, so one feature, which is my point really.

One feature in 3 years does not make a competitive environment.

Palm to their massive credit have turned out a load of new features.

 

[editor]

The Apps arn't what I was talking about because they weren't created by the Phone manufacturers, so one feature, which is my point really.

One feature in 3 years does not make a competitive environment.

Palm to their massive credit have turned out a load of new features.

What hardware technology firsts did the iPhone introduce?

 

[elbows]

What hardware technology firsts did the iPhone introduce?

It may not have been the first device in the world to use the tech, but as far as Im concerned the iphone really introduced capacitive multi-touch screens to people.

 

[Sunray]

Multi-touch interface, flick scrolling, pinch zoom, web browser that actually worked like a desktop one, predictive text full keyboard, full google maps integration with AGPS, iPod integration, visual voice mail, auto brightness control.

Then there is packaging it all together in a very easy to use way, not something to be dismissed lightly because its very hard to do and they utterly nailed it.

 

[Structaural]

fuuuuuuu

damnit after 20 months my iPhone fell out of a pair of trousers onto stone tiles in the bathroom - it fell like buttered toast, flat onto the screen, pow! Still sort of works, I check with my insurance and it's a 3 week wait to get it back, the fuckers. I think I'll attempt to fix it myself...

 

[Gromit]

Clear your mailbox you naughty boy.

163 unread!

You should have no more than 5 unread at any one time.

Sympathies on the splat though.

 

[Badgers]

My battery seems to be really bad at the moment.
The iPhone is very juicy on battery but I am barely getting half a day.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Ouch! I got a mate who did the same a while back, he brought it out in front a bunch of us who had just got our iPhones and everyone's reaction was the same you have when you see someone getting kicked in the nads!

 

[themonkeyman]

damnit after 20 months my iPhone fell out of a pair of trousers onto stone tiles in the bathroom - it fell like buttered toast, flat onto the screen, pow! Still sort of works, I check with my insurance and it's a 3 week wait to get it back, the fuckers. I think I'll attempt to fix it myself...

ouch

 

[Structaural]

Clear your mailbox you naughty boy.

163 unread!

You should have no more than 5 unread at any one time.

Sympathies on the splat though.

I read most email on my desktop - some sort of sync with gmail for read/unread messages would be useful (my .mac account syncs properly but then that's apple). Hopefully 'select all' and 'mark as read' will be added to iPhone OS 4, you know, the basic stuff...

 

[Crispy]

I read most email on my desktop - some sort of sync with gmail for read/unread messages would be useful (my .mac account syncs properly but then that's apple). Hopefully 'select all' and 'mark as read' will be added to iPhone OS 4, you know, the basic stuff...

Did you set up your Gmail by pressing the Gmail button on the iphone email setup wizard?

That's where you went wrong - the default setting is to use POP

Delete that account on the phone and set it up to use IMAP instead

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=77702

This gives full sync with read/unread on the server

EDIT: Why this isn't the default behaviour I don't know

 

[Gromit]

Yep use IMAP.

 

[Structaural]

oh, cheers. I'll do that (up until I cut my finger open anyway