koreyel's Profile

Want to know what the REAL bad news is? Every human on the planet willingly pays, and will willingly pay until they die, a minimum of $50 a month to talk wirelessly on a phone. You are hooked. And your kids are hooked. And here is the kicker: THE PRICE AIN'T EVER GOING TO DROP. Never. As in EVER! You are being sheared worse than any sheep ever alive. The cost of your phone calls per month is nowhere near 5 cents or even .005 cents. How does that make you feel? Like you are being sheared or slaughtered? Go ahead and moo and baa like good little obedient farm animals and tell me I am wrong. The real pirates love it when you defend their profits. Oink oink.

On the iPhone: It took Apple 30 years to make something I've got absolutely NO INTEREST in buying. If Apple doesn't make a true video ipod soon, someone in China will. The factories are obviously ready to go. And that device will REALLY "cannibalize both the iPhone’s market and the existing video-enabled iPod market."

Yes Beeblebrox. But he obviously doesn't like that name. The group of developers who worked on the Mac came to regard that name with intense affection. That's why he fibbed and told them he has secured the rights. Morale was slipping at that momoent. Similarly, I suspect, the group of developers on the iPhone came to refer to their creation with just as much intense affection. Ergo: He wants that name badly. He may be willing to pay whatever Cisco demands. We shall see... [Note: another interesting historically correspondence: the first two rows of Flint Center at De Anza Jr. College were filled with the close group of developers when the Mac was introduced in 84. I read that the first few rows of the Moscone Center had the iPhone team in them.]

WAWA and Nathan... Those were nicely written rebuttals to my post. Gentle and well-reasoned. Don't get me wrong: the iPhone indeed changes everything, just as the first Mac changed everything. Jobs has yet again, as he was wont to say in the 80s, "put a dent into the universe." Cell phones will never be the same. That's a given. Everything else out there now looks like a bulky, shit-brindle Zune. Or if you will: like an IBM Peanut (if your memory goes that far back) next to a Mac SE. My angst stems from not what this device is-- but what is SHOULD have been. Like the first Mac this has all of Steve J's strong and weak points inherent within it. Do you remember that the first Mac was basically a marketplace failure? Not enough memory. No slots. No software. Do you remember disk-swapper's elbow? Do you remember the falling Mac sales numbers? Do you remember that few could afford it? Those were the Mac's initial failures. And rightfully we can lay those failures on SJ: He said no slots. He bungled the software packages and insisted on a closed architecture. But also... regarding that first Mac: It was beautiful was it not? It was gloriously simple to use was it not? It changed everything... did it not? See what I am getting at? The iPhone is just like the first Mac. I am pissed because I see the SAME mistakes being made. I am pissed because I realize I am going to have to wait through upteen interations of the iPhone (just like we had to wait through a dozen different Macs) until someone finally gives me what I want. For beginners: I don't want sign a two year contract. With anybody. Ever. I want to be able to access and READ web pages COMFORTABLY. On the sofa. In bed. On the lounge in the back yard. Without burning my lap. Without having to plug in. Without having to struggle with a machine's weighty carapace... That's what will change my life. Anything else... is mere yakety-yak and yadda yadda yadda. Or if you will: A cell phone splashed with sugar water. Mere iCandy baby...

Something else to think about: Does coolness have a six month shelf life? The wait time is enormous. No... The wait time is ridiculous. Lots can happen in the tech world between here and then.

Nicely written Chris... Very crisp, with lots of snappy sentences. I liked this: "Steve, really, go slap some folks around and make it better, we need more shiny!" [Beam me up to Serentiy Scotty...] That captures the "all that glitters is eye-candy" just fine. Regarding this: "People were stunned by Expose window management (does anyone still use this?) and fast user switching is still a compelling (and cool looking) feature." I use the F11 key all time. I call it my: 'Clean-all-the-shit-out-of-the-way-NOW' key... Lastly... Here is what is left wanting in all the OS Big Cat genre: When my system gets hung... and it does when running Firefox often... I want an ALT_DEL_ESC key. In other words: A three finger salute that will call up FORCE QUIT without fail no matter how deep the infinte loop within infinite loop within infinite loop goes.... Fair enough?

"Assuming that the iPod Hi-Fi is audiophile quality (and that is quite an assumption) then songs purchased from the iTunes store are going to sound fairly horrible when the iPod Hi-Fi exposes every flaw." Yeah but suppose you stuff your ears first with a pair of ipod socks?