I don't know him personally, but TV/media star Stephen Fry and I have been seemingly bumping along through the Psion/Palm eras together. And now he's started a blog, with a huge and interesting essay on smartphones. He looks at the HTC Touch ('thundering nuisance'😉, the Sony Ericsson P1i (less responsive than 'a dead walrus'😉 and the Nokia E90 (a 'good product'😉, before loving but finding flaws in the iPhone.
Read on in the full article.
i just find it funny how he disses se k and w serieson one side as kids toys and then includes iphone with the big boys.
im sure he and lots of people love it and so do i but for gods sake, by any definition its glorified feature phone and belongs with the k and w series and not with smartphones.
reading his esay i got the impression that his only prerequisite in order to be classed as smartphone is presence of qwerty, while most of us would argue that its presence of sdk that makes it such.
I agree, but it's an entertaining and interesting piece, nevertheless. A good historical round-up, too. Last time I looked, the entire geekosphere seemed to be linking to it and the site had fallen over.
I have been trying to get to this page all day... and keep getting either nothing or a 503 error...
I'm starting to get the feeling that the people who always see the need to point out that the iPhone isn't a smartphone do it because they don't think their favorite devices will do very good in a comparison with it.
And the talk about Symbian being an open platform is starting to sound quite ironic to those of us who have actually written 3rd party software for it. Openness isn't black and white, and if it was, it'd be a question open for debate whether Symbian should be painted black or white.
Puterman... I have an M600i. I know that featurewise and speedwise it wouldn't hold a candle to the iPhone. Still, consedering the smartphoneness of the iPhone noone can tell me or anyone else that the iPhone is a smartphone... by any standard. Not that i have an extensive experience with smartphones but it seems to me that for a smartphone the PIM apps HAVE to be extremely functional... OK, the SE implementation isn't great but I can install an app to fix that. Can the iPhone do a full field search in Contacts? If for example I can't remember the guys name. Can I rearrange the desktop in order for it to be to my liking? As Steve points out the only thing you can do quickly as it should be is start the Calculator... wtf?
For me a smartphone (being a simple user and not a developer - i.e I don't care about SDK's and the like) is the kind of device that enables me to have everything I need at a glance, or at least a click away. That includes phonecalls, internet, music, text entry (which should be easy to do... nd quick - otherwise why not use a T9 keypad?). And i should be able to choose what I want that electronic workspace called the desktop to look like and what it offers me.
Puterman, even the apple fans themselves tend to adamantly argue that its not a smartphone, so what do you expect people to say? Its not a conspiracy, its what we have been instructed from the horse's mouth.
I applaud Stephen for his affinity with geekdom and his deep insight into the subject (even tho i haven't a chance yet to rad the whole article), but i am very disappointed that he could be so fickle and superficial, towing the mainstream line. I really expected the one few celebrities that says he is a geek at heart, to see beyond style over substance.
But as is aid, i haven't read it all yet, all i've seen are selective reporting from different blogs. Thus i may not be fully informed.
Interesting indeed.
@puterman
on my Smartphone I have the following:
- a real keyboard
- high speed wireless data (3G and 3.5G)
- ability to add 3rd party apps
- good PIM with To Dos and Notes app
- can run data and voice connections at the same time (really 'smart'😉
- Office support and PDF reader
- eBook reader options
- play OGG and other music formats
😊