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5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G

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Re: 5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G

#81

Post by SwellJoe »

jrockway wrote: post #75
SwellJoe wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it looks all that bad. But, I couldn't figure out how to buy and use one. There seems to be no actual way to purchase one, or any way to activate it with any carriers. I'm sure it's possible...but it's not obvious to me how to do it.

But, I couldn't figure out how to buy and use one. There seems to be no actual way to purchase one, or any way to activate it with any carriers. Here's the page to buy it from: http://us.direct.openmoko.com/products/neo-freerunner (It's linked from the main page, BTW.) Once you have one, get a SIM card from your carrier, and put it in the phone. That's it; GSM doesn't require that your carrier has any idea what phone…

(It's linked from the main page, BTW.)

Yes, I clicked that link. And then what? There is no "add to cart" button anywhere on that page. Maybe you're far better at browsing a website than I am, but I simply could find no way to click on something I wanted to buy, find out the price, and fill in my billing details.

Re: 5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G

#82

Post by SwellJoe »

boucher wrote: post #80
SwellJoe wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And AFAIK the first affordable unlimited data plan. Not quite right. My Sidekick on T-Mobile has had a $20 unlimited data plan for many, many years (total price of service including data is $59/month, vs. the $69/month price of the 1st gen iPhone with unlimited data, or $79/month in the 2nd gen iPhone). The Palm has also been available for several years from a few carriers with a $10-$20 unlimited data plan.

The iPhone makes better use of the data plan than anyone has before. Disagree with anything else about it, but MobileSafari is by far the best browser on any phone.

I made no comment about how previous data plans have been used. I was merely pointing out that the assertion that the iPhone was the first to offer an "affordable unlimited data plan" was simply untrue. I'm sure MobileSafari is better than donuts, but it has nothing to do with my comment.

Re: 5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G

#83

Post by demallien »

pavelludiq wrote: post #19
jotto wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are people so upset about this? They provide a great shopping experience for their customers, and a great distribution channel for your apps. This is a service worth paying for.

The problem is that this channel is THE ONLY ONE.

No, it really isn't. You can get a corporate distribution license if you have a userbase of a few thousand to serve, or if you have a userbase of less than a hundred or so, you can even do adhoc distribution by authorising their individual iPhones. Or, you can distribute source code, and anyone that has paid the less than $100 for a developer license can use your software.

The iPhone has some restrictions on distribution, but they are far from being as draconian as some would have us believe. Honestly, the price for a developer's cerificate is not a significant barrier, and with the other modes of distribution that Apple has provided (mostly to serve the corporate and academic markets), there are enough options to find a reasonably priced solution for most usecases.

Re: 5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G

#84

Post by jrockway »

Prrometheus wrote: post #54
felideon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. And unless my main reason for buying a mobile phone is "for hacking," I don't see why I should pay $400 for the alternative (i.e. the Neo FreeRunner) when the iPhone "just works"--and nicely at that. How sure are we that the Neo FreeRunner would even be stable enough for use as a main phone? When the day comes that I want to hack my phone, I'll get the FreeRunner. (Hopefully by then it'll be cheaper.) For now,…

I spent weeks getting a USB wireless adapter and a new-ish video card to work with my Linux desktop. Then I moved to a new apartment and the wireless driver can't handle the standard encryption used on our router, so I'm back to square one compiling kernels and blacklisting modules and spending hours booting back and forth into Windows again. The point is, I don't want to do that with my phone. My phone should WORK.…

The problem in your case is hardware, not software. If you had hardware specifically designed to work perfectly with Linux, it would work perfectly with Linux. Instead you have whatever you found at Best Buy.

Anyway, all phones designed to run Linux run Linux just fine. They... were designed to.

Re: 5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G

#85

Post by gommm »

jotto wrote: post #36
newt0311 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not instead have optional quality? Provide a set of approved programs but still let users install what ever they want.

Doesn't Microsoft Windows kind of do this? You can optionally use these "certified drivers" and software from big vendors, but there are always the long tail of apps, widgets, bleeding edge drivers, smiley faces etc, that people will always download and spoil the user experience. Point is, it doesn't work for Microsoft. It's a slippery slope, once you open your platform to anyone (which is great), you'll have a night…

But we kind of have that with mac os x... For the drivers and different hardware configurations (admittedly a big part of what can cause problems) not really unless you count os x86. Bue when it comes to software, between input managers, unsanity's extensions and the unix foundation of mac os x letting us play around... we have more than enough things that could potentially spoil the user experience but it still works rather well...

That's why I don't really buy the argument that applications on the iphone need to be controlled centrally for stability sake...

Re: 5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G

#86

Post by gommm »

jws wrote: post #61
yummyfajitas wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have quite a few ogg files. Converting to mp3 before using on an mp3 player is very annoying. Plus, libogg is BSD licensed, so why not include it?

ogg has not been legally tested. The developers read through what they believe to be the relevant patents and declared themselves clean, but no one knows what those patent holders think and what patents may have been missed. Only when a company with deep pockets releases ogg vorbis in a high volume device will we see who is waiting to come out of the woodwork and start a patent suit. For the tiny and shrinking set of…

amen to lossless support on the iphone, I'm tired of reencoding my flac files

Re: 5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G

#87

Post by felideon »

jrockway wrote: post #72
felideon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. And unless my main reason for buying a mobile phone is "for hacking," I don't see why I should pay $400 for the alternative (i.e. the Neo FreeRunner) when the iPhone "just works"--and nicely at that. How sure are we that the Neo FreeRunner would even be stable enough for use as a main phone? When the day comes that I want to hack my phone, I'll get the FreeRunner. (Hopefully by then it'll be cheaper.) For now,…

I just want to use my phone. You know, you can get "just a phone" for about $5 these days. Why are you shelling out for an iPhone? (The answer is because you don't want "just a phone".)

Sorry, the emphasis was on the word "use", not "phone".

I just want to _use_ my smart phone.

Re: 5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G

#88

Post by cstef »

dzohrob wrote: post #79
cstef wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, maybe not the only one... http://www.ziphoneunlock.com/?id=yuga Just sayin'

shame on you if that's an affiliate link.

I do not work for the company that the link points to, if that is what you mean. Just saying you can jailbreak your phone and run anything you want.

Re: 5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G

#89

Post by talboito »

apgwoz wrote: post #29
extantproject wrote: post #3

All cell phones expose "your whereabouts and [provide] ways for others to track you without your knowledge" via cell tower triangulation. At a minimum, this point is FUD.

But do other cell phones provide novices an SDK and a few simple functions to get position via GPS and do a HTTP POSTs while entering an item in "Joe's shopping list" application? Perhaps they do, but without a constant connection to wifi or EDGE/3G that the iPhone has, you'd have to authorize it, in order for it to be sent. Probably not so with the iPhone. It's designed to constantly talk to the Internet (it's even…

Yes, the majority of other, modern cell phones provide novices "an sdk and a few simple functions to get position via GPS".

BREW: http://www.devx.com/wireless/Article/11195

J2ME: http://developers.sun.com/mobility/apis/articles/location/

Re: 5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G

#90

Post by michaelneale »

mdasen wrote: post #5
swombat wrote: post #2

Blah blah blah... Can anyone say "broken record"? FSF claims to be about choice. Well, I exercise my choice by choosing to buy the phone that I prefer.

The FSF can be like that, but they also have a good point. Only Apple could get away with creating a smartphone where they hold all the cards - deciding what and who can and can't develop for it. If Microsoft tried to pull something like that, we'd all cry foul. /yeah, I'm still getting an iPhone today. //hoping that in two years there will be other competitors who are more open and match the iPhone's quality

Couldn't agree more. What dismays me is that no one else can do better - but like you, I hope it changes.
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