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Apple iPhone and related items (cont.)

Another piece about the mighty iHype which the iBacklash brigade will no doubt koff and splutter over:

Has Apple found the magic combination by leveraging a hugely popular and familar brand (iPod) with their larger business aspirations? Over at Salon.com, Farhad is crowning the iPhone for finally living up to all they hype. How many execs started smiling at the Exchange support announcement? This road warrior sure as heck did.

So who can catch them? Palm? Uh, Palm, hello? Palm/Handspring gave it a good try. They had the Palm Pilot/Visor that was popular, they had a great design and they had a loyal (to a fault) dev base. But nothing fed those flames and they’ve slowly died out. Rim? The RIM UI still makes me giggle, it is so 1998. Windows Mobile? I still can’t find access to some settings on my phone and it has been a year in the looking. Symbian? To Euro to care about America.

Now the question becomes, how will Apple continue to feed the flame? At the one year mark we see iPhone 2.0 software. Logic would seem to say, hold off on 3G iPhone until September/October to ramp up for the holiday season both on new phones and on discounted left overs. $5 says the 3G iPhone has the same dimensions so that 6 months later, they’ll intro iPhone Slim, perhaps the width of the touch. Then what? Clearly Steve’s got a road map and it looks to be a good ride.
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Okay, can't bear to wade through the last couple of pages of squabbles to see if this has been mentioned yet (plus I'm a bit pissed), but today the BBC announced that they'd launched iPlayer for the iPhone.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7283702.stm

Front page news on their website, but did they include a link for it's use? No. Can you find it on Apple's website? No.

Another "launch" from the BBC that isn't. Same as with iPlayer.

Annoying.
 
Kid_Eternity said:
I yeah I saw that, it's streaming only isn't it?
Click to expand...

Yep. Completely useless unless you're at a wifi hotspot... I don't think the BBC have got the idea of a *mobile* phone. Still easier and more useful to download programmes by BT and convert them to Ipod format... :rolleyes: @ BBC
 
As much as I'm frustrated myself, do you have any idea how hard it's been for the beeb to get the iplayer to the point it's at today in relation to ownership of copyright (regardless of them being pushed into bed with MS due to being obliged to include DRM)?

There's a constant battle with rights owners to get anything online - the failure to allow downloads is the old battle of allowing an unfettered copy of the programme to be downloaded, which isn't going to happen.
 
No charge for free apps is a good move. I can see a good number of companies releasing their iPhone app for free as a way of advertising their main product.
 
dogmatique said:
As much as I'm frustrated myself, do you have any idea how hard it's been for the beeb to get the iplayer to the point it's at today in relation to ownership of copyright (regardless of them being pushed into bed with MS due to being obliged to include DRM)?

There's a constant battle with rights owners to get anything online - the failure to allow downloads is the old battle of allowing an unfettered copy of the programme to be downloaded, which isn't going to happen.
Click to expand...

Its probably very hard. But that's no excuse for the crap they call "Iplayer". And this "iPhone iPlayer" ( :rolleyes: ) is nothing more than checking the iPhone / Touch user-agent and then streaming the appropriate content. It would take me all of a morning to implement, assuming the content was already converted.

Saying that they've launched a specific "iPlayer" for the iPhone is just bollocks...! :mad: It doesn't add any functionality to the iPhone and is completely unsuited to it...! If I was the BBC I would be looking at how Apple is doing movie rentals via iTunes, and talking to them about that. But this assumes the BBC has an iDea..
 
This is rather surprising - it appears that the iPhone can't do full multi-tasking:
Apple's SDK documentation (embedded in the TechCrunch post) points out that the iPhone can only display a single application screen at a time, and urges prospective developers to spend a lot of time designing an application that can handle quick stops and starts. "In other words, users should not feel that leaving your iPhone application and returning to it later is any more difficult than switching among applications on a computer."

There could be a number of reasons behind this stance, perhaps chief among them that the iPhone might not be able to support the processing demands required by multitasking, but plenty of other phones seem to be able to juggle more than one application at a time. I wonder whether future Apple-developed iPhone applications--like, say an iPhone version of iChat--will be subject to the same restrictions.
http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9888722-37.html
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Dask said:
Looks like you'll soon be able to run any windows app you want on the iphone legitimity.
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I'm not sure what programs would run and I imagine it's going to be as fiddly as fuck trying to run some apps on such a small screen. Still, it could be well handy.

Java is more interesting: that'll open up the iPhone to a ton of mobile apps.
 
The potential is there, especially if you believe the hype

"Imagine being able to run most popular PC software anywhere, with full Internet connectivity, without having to lug a notebook PC around"
 
Dask said:
The potential is there, especially if you believe the hype

"Imagine being able to run most popular PC software anywhere, with full Internet connectivity, without having to lug a notebook PC around"
Click to expand...
Well. I'd be delighted to be able to run Photoshop on the iPhone, but I frankly doubt it's going to have the horsepower for that or be particularly usable.

Without a SD card slot for transferring images off my camera it wouldn't be much use, and without a replaceable battery it couldn't replace my laptop anyhow (except for short trips).
 
Running photoshop might be a bit much, although it might be alright with an older version (pre cs). As far as card readers go, could they not just make an eternal 4-1 reader like you can currently get for usb?

What I really would like to see is a native ms remote desktop client so that I could login to our servers and perform maintenance related tasks without having to be near a computer.

I might buy an iphone then, but only with c+p & 3G. :)
 
Dask said:
Running photoshop might be a bit much, although it might be alright with an older version (pre cs). As far as card readers go, could they not just make an eternal 4-1 reader like you can currently get for usb?

What I really would like to see is a native ms remote desktop client so that I could login to our servers and perform maintenance related tasks without having to be near a computer.

I might buy an iphone then, but only with c+p & 3G. :)
Click to expand...
It would be too much of a pain to lug about a separate card reader IMO.

I'm sure there'll be remote desktop client software for the iPhone soon seeing as there's loads available for Palm/WM.
 
editor said:
This is rather surprising - it appears that the iPhone can't do full multi-tasking:
Click to expand...


This just indicates Apple doesn't want apps running in the background... If the iPhone couldn't do any multi-tasking then the mail client wouln't be able to receive/send email without being active 24/7, and sms's/calls being received.

Previously, developers have ported programs over that use daemons (ie run in the background)...

Its just the media seizing some info and trying to make a big point out of it. And then all the developers and everyone else who has a clue having to calm them down... ( :rolleyes: @ clueless, non-technical journos who read technical documents and make pointless news-stories out of them)
 
Dask said:
What I really would like to see is a native ms remote desktop client so that I could login to our servers and perform maintenance related tasks without having to be near a computer.
Click to expand...

Porting VNC will probably quite easy, a pukka MS Remote Desktop might take longer. (Although there are open-source implementations are available for porting)
 
jæd said:
Its just the media seizing some info and trying to make a big point out of it. And then all the developers and everyone else who has a clue having to calm them down... ( :rolleyes: @ clueless, non-technical journos who read technical documents and make pointless news-stories out of them)
Click to expand...
Could you name some of these "clueless, non-technical journos" please, just so I know to avoid their opinion in the future. Thanks.

Oh, and being able to run an email client in the background is not full multi-tasking. Even my Palm can do that. And play music while I take pictures too, come to think of it - and the Palm is definitely not billed as a multi tasking phone. I dare say the difference might be important to some folks.
 
On these kind of matters, the developer community discussions are the best place to find the truth. They make their money from writing software, rather than eye catching news stories, so there is no incentive to spin, and every incentive to discover what is factually accurate.

As a developer myself, I really despair at some articles I read. Some of it is bordering on tech quackery. It's generally ok on the broadsheets, but out there on the web, tech sites like CNET can have some of the worst articles - possibly because they are using people who are doing it as a sideline, and also because I suspect there is relatively little fact checking and editorial control.
 
After reading loads of stuff about the SDK I think Apple are really going in the right direction with the iPhone.
 
Dask said:
Why would you want to have full multi tasking on a phone anyway? What purpose would it serve?
Click to expand...
Well, there's 'nuff Windows Mobile users digging it, although I'm happy with the Palm's way of doing things and - I imagine - the iPhone's too. I guess it depends on how much of a power user you are.
 
Dask said:
After reading loads of stuff about the SDK I think Apple are really going in the right direction with the iPhone.
Click to expand...

Yes, writing + testing apps for it is stunningly easy. :D

Dask said:
Why would you want to have full multi tasking on a phone anyway? What purpose would it serve?
Click to expand...

All phones can multi-task to differing degrees. Its why people can call you when you're writing a SMS... :D

editor said:
Oh, and being able to run an email client in the background is not full multi-tasking. Even my Palm can do that.
Click to expand...

Well, with a mail client there's a whole bunch of io issues you have to deal with. And anything that deals with networking has its own problems (network problems, remote server problems) and then you have to deal with it being mobile. (ie, can't guarantee an optimal network connection).

I'd say that writing a decent mail-client that sends / receives mail in the background. Its tricky to do well from scratch. (And yes. been there, done that for Uni)

Can Palm 5 devices multi-task...? Of course. Its just that its not very common. (And this is probably the main reason Palm phones are very stable)

paolo999 said:
As a developer myself, I really despair at some articles I read. Some of it is bordering on tech quackery. It's generally ok on the broadsheets, but out there on the web, tech sites like CNET can have some of the worst articles - possibly because they are using people who are doing it as a sideline, and also because I suspect there is relatively little fact checking and editorial control.
Click to expand...

Yes, I'd agree with that. Even just a little critical thinking can go a long way. Why would Apple not want apps running in the background...? Most probably so that they don't end up with situation Windows Mobile ended up with, with background apps clogging up memory...
 
Dask said:
Why would you want to have full multi tasking on a phone anyway? What purpose would it serve?
Click to expand...

Instant messaging client stays live in background, VOIP call stays live in background... etc etc. There's various good reasons.

Just to be clear, the iPhone and the OS can and does multi-task - it's a UNIX variant, the all original 'medium weight' multi-tasking OS. All the standard (i.e. Apple) apps run in this way - e.g. web pages rendering in background. Hacked phones will run things that don't even have a UI, i.e. can only ever be backround apps, such as terminal (i.e. shell) sessions controlled by remoted devices.

With the official SDK/API however, Apple is not letting the 3rd party applications leverage this capability.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out, especially if larger developers working on, say, enterprise integration are hamstrung by the limitation. There could be some significant (i.e. sales related) pressure on Apple to evolve their policy here.

It's happened before - Jobs said it was going to be Web Apps only originally, but the underlying truth was that the OS wasn't in the right shape for an API, and they didn't have an SDK ready. In light of that, it's possible, although far from certain, that a future version of the OS will have sufficiently robust resource controls that a runaway background task will not kill the phone, or consume an unexpectedly large amount of (potentially chargeable) data, and that they will open up background processing to 3rd party apps.

We'll see.
 
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