Viva la Revolucion!
We bought 15 iPhones in San Francisco last year for all our friends. Last Friday Patrick and I went to the T-Mobile store and bought iPhones. They didn’t have them in stock so we will have to wait for a few weeks before we actually get them. There are several reason why you could get an iPhone but I want to talk about one reason in particular in this post. By buying, using and developing for the iPhone right now you can participate in the start of a new era in computing.
Yep, I’m serious. The other reasons for wanting an iPhone are valid too and apply to me too. It is the mother of all shiny objects, a great tool and a nice phone and you just want one as soon as you hold one in your hands. But besides that the iPhone platform is also clearly the start of something new. And I want to be a part of that.
Early Apple computers (before the Macintosh) had serial ports and something called a Game Port. It could be used for digital and analog input and output and was very powerful. People would buy an Apple I or Apple II and hack around with these ports to build exiting stuff like printers or home automation tools. Back then it was clear to people that you could build practicably anything with these machines if you had some basic hard- and software knowledge and that was an extremely exciting prospect.
Now we have the iPhone. A lot of people are complaining about the closed character of the iPhone but I see it differently. Sure, things could improve a lot. The NDA should go and the App store should work more transparent and all that. But look at the possibilities for a moment and you will realize just how empowering this little computer is!
The early Apple computers had serial ports that let people do anything with their computers which was cool. The box itself could do a few basic things which were exciting but still fairly limited. Now look at the iPhone: developers have access to the Internet, the GPS chip and all the motion sensors. The touch, tilt and move interface is all there waiting for you to take advantage of. All you have to do is come up with an application that uses a few of these, freely available, technologies and built it.
Better yet; you don’t even have to worry about setting up an eShop, coming up with license fees, promotion, illegal copies or how to make your invention available to users. The App store handles everything for you.
So what you have is a phenomenon with unlimited possibilities, free tools to build applications, an app store that handles distribution, promotion and security and millions of eager users who can’t wait to play with your products, and pay for them too.
It is not often that a revolution takes place where you get a chance to participate. It happened, and is still happening, with the Internet and now it has just started with a new platform called the iPhone.
I just couldn’t resist becoming a part of that.
And of course one way you’re taking part in the revolution is coming to the iPhone Dev Camp on August 30: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/929593/ (yes, a shameless promotion =)!
I would give an arm and a leg for the marketing (hyping) of Apple gadgeteria, but irl a more down to earth comparison reveals better insights.
http://www.allaboutsymbian.com.....comers.php
I’m really amazed by the possibilities of the Nokia N95, 5 MP camera is very sweet, endless amount of opensource (java) software, 10GB storage and the phone fits easily in my pocket, mobility guaranteed.
@Bart Collet let’s not forget that technical specifications are meaningless to 90% of the mobile users. They want user experience. Apple gives them just that and that makes them happy. And there is one thing that the open source community still hasn’t figured out and that’s just that: user experience. I’d rather have a mobile phone where you can get 10 great apps than a phone where you can get a thousend crappy apps.
iPhone wins it from all the other phones on user experience and that’s where the battlefield will be in the next ten years or so.
It’s unf***ing believable, but the iPhone keeps breaking one sales-record after another.
Even if the chipset is causing problems:
http://tweakers.net/nieuws/550.....ipset.html
Long time since i’ve seen such outing of blind fanatic product defenders. Kudos to Apple marketing for that!
@Bart I am also amazed by the results, however, noone can deny that the iPhone actually IS a good 3G telephone!