A letter from the iPhone world

Was that a sad piece to read. The Iphone crowd can coo all it wants, and frankly I can't be bothered. I will stick with S60 for now. One handed devices trumps all in usability, even if the UI is a bit cluttered.

that's a fair response, aside from your comment on osx being an os for beginners. it is unparalleled as a development platform. unix underpinnings come in useful on a daily basis. the filesystem is far more powerful than fat32/ntfs. let's not forget that windows until recently could not handle files larger than 4gb.

I have the feeling that the statement about entering Chinese and Japanese on a N95 is just a red herring in an attempt to make a touch screen seem superior w/o giving any details. On a PC with Windows XP Home or Professional (non-Chinese version is good enough) a latin keyboard is enough to enter Chinese. You don't need a touch screen like the one used on a tablet PC for that.

So why should this be that different on a phone? If it is really so much different, why didn't Nokolay explain the differences in a few words or a video? Did he just write it to make the touch screen seem more capable? One advantage of a touch screen, though, is the ability (at least at the hardware level) to just draw the characters on the screen. The question here is how convenient that is for real world use with fingers on something like the iPhone.

BTW: Does a software exist to compose and read Chinese SMS on a European S60 phone? Would be a good addition for my phone.

And regarding HSDPA speed and support for different frequencies: At least the networks in my home country charge alot of money when travelling outside Europe. And this cost will make me use data less then and for that EDGE and even GPRS will be good enough. Keeps my bank account in the propper territory so could even be counted as positive for private use. Even if I am inside my home country, I am content with 3.6 MBit/second as that is already faster than my Internet connection at home. Having HSUPA would be far more useful to me as that would speed up uploads.

Im suprised that Steve did this at all. It was blatently a fanboy rant, just a little more polite than usual.

"It's the same with many Windows users who do not understand why Macs are so much better untill for some reason they end with with one for a week or two and can never get back to the PC."

And thats the proof. The Windows V Mac/OSX argument has been going on for years, and the obvious answer is that it depends on the user. Every single non fanboy has known that for ages.

And yet the classic 'Macs are so much better' line comes from Nikolay.

omg..i love ur comments steve!
it's like..u fought back real good there..
i'm so agree with u!
heavy users will have to stay with Windows or Symbian! there are far more various things u can do with it than Mac OS!

Simplified Chinese characters as used in PRC are quite easy to input using a mobile keyboard such as that on the N95.

In PRC children learn Pinyin and Chinese characters in parallel from nursery school onwards. Pinyin is the way to enter Chinese characters using phonetic roman characters.

In China you see the same number of teenagers sending Chinese character text messages from usual looking phones. They enter the message in Pinyin and it appears and is sent as Chinese characters.

"magapixel myth" Can't this guy use spell check?

Unnecessary to reply to brainwashed Mactards/iTards, it's like arguing with Jehovah's Witnesses. Apple always does everything right, just the required functions, never less, never more, it's just perfect. If something's not there, you don't need it.

I think the real comparison is going to be when the Appstore launches, and the iPhone and iPod Touch finally get some real applications.

As it stands, there is so much that the iPhone CAN'T do, that what it can do pales into insignificance (certainly for power users, which is maybe not the iPhone's target market). However the iPhone does what it does extremely well...

I'm a software developer, and something I find fascinating about the iPhone isn't necessarily the phone at all, but rather the iPhone SDK and the App Store distribution model.

I've recently downloaded the SDK and have started to create my first iPhone applications. I'm annoyed that the development environment only works under OS X Leopard, but delighted with the IDE and instrumentation tools. Cocoa is a pretty easy framework to pickup if you have had OOD experience. I was productive within a couple days of downloading the SDK. One thing that i'm really happy about is the lack of variety among the handsets what support Cocoa Touch (just the original iPhone and iPhone 3G), that is a really big win for developers.

I think it is really quite revolutionary that Apple is opening up the App Store to anyone that wants to pay $99/year for a developer subscription. Immediately you have a venue with which to sell your software, and the commission that apple takes (30% or free if you give your apps away for free) seems reasonable given all the infrastructure that they have built (iTunes). With apple projecting to sell 10 million units by the end of the year, that is a pretty large audience for the software that i'm developing.

It would be cool if nokia could come up with a similar model for symbian applications (perhaps open up Download! app to symbian developers)

Saying that MacOS is just better for beginners is really stretching it. Of course it's easier to do real work on the platform you're used to. To me, a Linux user since more than ten years, Windows is very difficult to work with. I've been using Windows at work for years, and it just doesn't get much easier. It all depends on what you're used to and what sorts of things you do.

i am a mac user (fan). I have tried iphone twice. And yet last week i traded my second iphone for e71 which together with BluePhoneElite2 is better integrated with mac - ironically. And it syncs wirelessly via iSync. Iphone is inconvenient for a business user - try typing in a car (while being passenger) and you will understand. It will eventually be great but not yet ! I have done a review in latvian here : http://boo.tunt.lv/?zoomzina=901

I am also surprised that you took to answer this rant, Steve. Seems typical iphonniac attack to me.

Nokia is a moving target, and Apple is slower than I thought previously. First iPhone was years behind Nokia when it appeared on the market. Now, yet-to-be sold iP3G is about just 20 months behind Nokia. With such speed, we will see a truly revolutionary iPhone in 3 years only. (if, and only if, Nokia screws up big time). By that time there will be 5 or 6 generations of iPhones to support in SDK, all with different specs, speeds, and limitations. Goodluck apple.

How come every time iPhone users go back to the UI?, we get it!, its pretty, yes, apple got THAT right.
I think thats about it, no usability.

I really don't get it, they ad this as a full mp3 player with NO bluetooth stereo support, you got to be kidding.... (only one example).

Steve,
Great reply 😊 BTW.

Duh! If you don't want a 5MP pic to send over the network then set a lower res! It's not compulsory to use the full 5MP.

OS/X and linux are impossible to use for me, because important software that I use is only available on Windows. This applies to several titles I use. Macs are extremely easy to use, linux can be easy to use, Windows is easy to use. How easy does it need to be? Same thing applies to the phones. Nobody can honestly say any of these phones are hard to use? I've never seen a manual either, not for any phone.

But in the end the thought that remains with me is: what's the point of all this? Get the phone you prefer and get on with it. No need to tell everyone else what they should be using. Should we all drive the same car? The automotive equivalent of the iPhone is surely the new age VW Beetle. No thanks. I'll stay with my Lexus equivalent thanks.

Good work Steve - politely and correctly answered. Bar the bit about Mac OSX.

I have no problem what-so-ever with fanboys, generally speaking I think they do more good than harm. They add spice to what can at times be a very dry subject. Listen to what the fanboys say, read the advice of the paid experts, watch the Smartphones Show, try the device for yourself and make an informed decision. It all goes into the mix right?

The iPhone is not perfect, but neither is the N95... but I have higher hopes for the iPhone as a platform, not least because it commands almost the entire focus of perhaps the innovative company on the planet.

yeah, who would want a MP3 player with no bluetooth. Oh, that's right -- just about 100 million of them, or about 90% of all MPS3 players sold.

Thanks for an interesting answer to the email about the iPhone.

I�m using Mac OS X and Windows on my computer but the iPhone is a very uninteresting product for me. My E90 is a far more powerful device and now when hacking is available there�s even more potential in it. I can only see some UI elements in the iPhone as a good part and the developer tools. But as a powerful smartphone with ability to replace a laptop it has several shortcomings. Platforms as Windows Mobile and Symbian has far more power.

I think Apple has a problem. They sell laptops and a really powerful iPhone Pro with fully open OS and a qwerty keyboard (sliding) and a 5 MP camera with good optics and sensor paired with decent video recording would be the same as competition to the laptop line. I.e users choose the iPhone Pro instead of a laptop on the same way I prefer the E90 or other devices in that class over a clumsy laptop.

Apple needs to decide if a future iPhone should compete with the MacBook or if it will remain as an "iPod Phone" as todays two models.

The argument "lack of functions mean usability and a better device for the user" is not valid. It�s better to equip a device with two different UIs. A simplified one for some users and a fully open UI for the power users. That�s the only way in some devices.

iPhone today is more of an iPod Phone instead of a device who can compete with a modern Symbian OS or Windows Mobile based device as a device who can replace a laptop. Apple needs to change that if the iPhone has a chance to be a good device for the power users.

I require this specs of an iPhone ready to replace N95, E90, HTC Touch Pro etc:

*4 inch screen with 800 x 480 pixels res
*Qwerty keyboard on a slider as the HTC Touch Pro
*3,2-5 MP camera
*Mac OS X Mobile with a Finder in the same style as the desktop OS combined with todays iPhone UI (for those who prefer it)
*Fully open platform
*Good Office apps with "desktop class functions" (as the SoftMaker Office on the WM)
*Good PDF readers and the ability to create and edit PDFs on the device
*An e-mail client with support for HTML, BlackBerry, push mail, Active Sync and so on
*A powerful PIM suite onboard
Etc

When this iPhone Pro arrives I will gladly purchase one. But even better specs would be nice, this is the minimum specs for a device who claims to be "the best smartphone" as the fans says.

But in the end the thought that remains with me is: what's the point of all this? Get the phone you prefer and get on with it. No need to tell everyone else what they should be using. Should we all drive the same car?

Absolutely, that is exactly the right attitude to take.

If there's one lesson to be drawn from the incredible explosion in phone sales over the last few years, it's that there's no such thing as a perfect phone for everyone.

Phone sales aren't concentrated in one or two models, they're spread across many dozens, because tastes and needs are so diverse.

Someone buying a 50 euro phone clearly isn't after the same device as someone buying a 500 euro phone, yet they're both phone sales.

And even when the price is the same, the device can be very different (compare the Nokia 8800 to the E90 for example).

yeah, who would want a MP3 player with no bluetooth. Oh, that's right -- just about 100 million of them, or about 90% of all MPS3 players sold.

But there have been BILLIONS of phones sold over the same period, and sales are growing all the time.

Nokia alone sells over 400 million phones EVERY YEAR, and they have a minority of the market.

Sales of MP3 players are insignificant compared to phone sales, they might as well not exist. Far more people now buy music-compatible phones than dedicated music players, that's why Apple entered the phone business because they didn't want to end up extinct.

But most people aren't buying mobile devices as music players, it's the phone element that's by far the most important. Most people go into the shop for a phone, and then ask the salesperson what else they can get to go with it, like the optional extras on a car.

The E71 comes with lots of different European, non-English keyboard layouts, I believe.

It does indeed, I'm in Finland and can confirm there are Scandinavian characters on the E71s on sale in Scandinavia.

It's the same on all QWERTY (and AZERTY etc) devices from major manufacturers, regional keyboard versions have been part of the IT world for decades now (and decades before that on typewriters).

It just shows how little research the original e-mail author did when they assumed the keyboards would be the same everywhere. It's like they just wrote the first thing that came into their head.

I worship Steve Jobs and Apple. I love their products and I spent all day on my macs working, manipulating images, creating music...and so on.

Apple are brilliant at their operating system AND design and simplicity yet power. My iMac is a fantastic piece of kit for the money and my trusty 2 year old MacBook (the black one) is an absolute workhorse even now.

But as much as I'm a die hard apple fan (since owning a 'classic' years ago) I've never understood why they didn't actually partner with Nokia...who are in some ways the 'apple' of the mobile phone world.

The iPhone is dreadful. Yes, the UI is fantastic, the screen and resolution awesome. But that's about it. The camera is a joke, typing messages is frustrating and slow (Apple are apparently investigating ways to incorporate a keyboard now) and the lack of decent navigation, video and MMS basically means the phone is a glorified ipod.

Trust me, I do ANYTHING to buy the next apple product and I LOVE mobile phones. I watch every Keynote on the net and DAILY visit macrumour sites...but the iPhone is THAT bad that I refuse to be a convert. My N95 8GB trounces the iphone in so many departments - yes it's a little crude and sometimes a little slow but as an allrounder it's unbeaten.

Sorry Apple - you're going to have to try harder.

The focus on the UI is interesting. In my opinion the S60 works on a good way but I had preferred a more S80/Hildon styled UI on the E90. A good thing with S60 is the ability to organize the menu layout on it�s own way with own folders and so on. A minimum requirement for me in a good UI is the ability to create folders, move apps into those and so on. The most logical improvement is to integrate the file manager and the app manager into one. I.e some folders contains files and other apps or a mix of both on the same way as on a computer.

A dumb locked UI with static elements is not a good thing. But it can be a default UI in some models (but a simple setting unlocks the whole thing as I wrote before).

The arguments about the iPhone UI seems to describe it as a simplified one with the lack of functions as the good thing. I.e a device such as the N95 has too many options but iPhone is better because it lacks them. More options and functions is a problem but iPhone saves the users from that.😉

I have problems to see the good things in an expensive device with limitations in the UI or OS if there is a better one available. The debates about the iPhone has convinced me: it�s not a device for me. And I think it�s stupid to require "iPhones" from every other manufacturer and say every device with a big touch screen is an "iPhone copy".

The "iPhone concept" was introduced with devices like Motorola A920/925, Neonode N1 (first device with finger input instead of stylus) and Nokia 7700/7710 to name a few.

In my opinion everything comes to usability. As you can't compare non smartphones with n95 etc., it is not fair to do it between iphone first edition and n- or e-series. But as all phones evolve and the key features became similar, the best one will be speedy, comfort, ui friendly AND able to install necessary 3rd party programs. In this case for now it is or latest WM smartphones or 3G iphone, which beside camera, can do anything symbian phones can.

so nikolay...any quick rebuttal, please? c'mon this is becoming interesting...

is nikolay is a bulgarian?

Some things never change. There is nothing more annoying than people forcing you to love something. You want an iphone? Get an iphone!! Use the iphone, tap on the screen, and enjoy the interface. Don't pick on me and tell me I should get one too. I am not cool enough to own an Iphone and I will stick to my E70 and E90.

Don't get me wrong I love Macs and would never go back to a PC but I just can't get on with the Iphone, it is also limited in the camera function and Office capability, for me the Nokia E90 is a much better phone/portable computer, the wide screen makes all the difference when reading documents etc. If you want something that doesn't do very much but looks good doing it get an Iphone.

Yes, everything comes down to usability. Can anyone name a phone that can't be used? LOL!

Another market trend that is worth noting perhaps, MacBook Air. Costs a fortune, if you want one walk in to an Apple shop, they'll have loads. Compare that to Intel Atom based mini netbooks
(co-incidentally, netbooks were done by Psion over 10 years ago), one quarter the price of the Air, flying out of the shops and shortages everywhere.

I think it all comes down to price. Especially of late.
Nokia N95, SIM-free, same price as an Intel Atom mini-laptop or free gratis with a 12 month contract. But of course nobody will buy one because they can't be used. No usability you see, it's impossible to switch it on due to the unusable on button. The unviewable screen can't be seen and the inaudible audio can't be heard.

They fit in your jeans pocket though. And they survive a serious drop onto concrete. Of course, next to an animated UI neither of those things matter. It's more important to stand like a geek poking your palm with your finger. LOL!

Interesting. The N95-8GB (or N96) and the iPhone are both phones I am looking at for my next buy. The N95's camera is far superior to the iPhone's. Not because of the megapixels, but because of it's Carl Zeiss optics. Often, a separate camera is not needed anymore.
I like the iPhone for it's great screen and browser, which are far superior (mainly because of the touch interface and screen size) than the N95's (240*320 is a bit crappy).
I prefer the N95 for gaming, because of it's keys. I like the iPhone interface, S60 looks very old in comparision.
I like Nokia Maps with Navigation, making my TomTom obsolete and saving space on my windscreen.
The iPhone's email client is far better. I don't need to jailbreak a N95 to use it with the provider of my choice. Text entry is faster on the iPhone.

They are very complementary. Both have strengths, where the other one lacks ...

Good, that I have some months left for my actual contract, so I have some time until I need to decide.

I am not going to argue pros and cons of iphone 3g and N95 8G anymore than I argued with my colleague for buying a Toyota Auris when I had spoken to him about my favourable experience with WW Golf Plus.

However I am questioning Steve's comment about new iPhone 3G cost v N95 8G. For reasonable talk, SMS, Data and WiFi (on Cloud and BT Openzone) in UK then I think that the costs are much closer than he states. My iPhone 3g will cost �99 plus 18x�35 = �730 not �1000 (600 mins talk, 500 SMS, unlimited 3g data, unlimited WiFi on Cloud and BT Openzone). I suspect a new model nokia (N96) will be about the same.

I enjoyed my Nokia E61 but enjoyed many of MY most used functions more on iPhone v1 despite losing some functions.

Neither N95 or iPhone is bad - that's why Steve put them both in top 3 smartphones!

Just my tuppence worth