Almost lost in the new iPod rollout was the price slash by $200 on the 8GB iPhone and the discontinuation of the 4GB model. I'm quite surprised Apple dropped the price so quickly, but according to Steve Jobs, they want the phone to be in a lot of stockings this christmas.
Still don't agree with their decision to lock the phone to AT&T (the hack workaround not for the faint of heart) as they would most likely sold double or triple the devices if it was an open phone for all networks.
But glad to see the phone already tumbling in price, might be cheap enough for me to purchase before next year's NAB!
Digg it
And when did Apple ever care about Open?
Walter noted that: "...they would most likely sold double or triple the devices if it was an open phone for all networks."
I don't recall Apple ever caring one twit over the years about anything being "open." In reality, little of what they have done has followed anything other than their own agenda. In that, there are good and bad points and I could take either side of the argument and run with it.
But someday I hope that they get off AT&T. Verizon is a pain in the ole posterior but it is a far better system than AT&T.
Ron Lindeboom
Was hoping they mellowed
With Macs now able to run Windows and iTunes / iPods and even Safari now running on Windows, I would have thought Apple was open to "opening up" some more items. Guess the exclusive contract with AT&T was too much money to consider that.
Course it's kind of funny that they release the iPhone without the phone and with more memory.
Safari on Windows?
Looking at the COW's server logs, you sure wouldn't be able to tell that Safari had been released for Windows.
I can't recall seeing even a fraction of a percentile logging in with it.
Maybe Abraham can run a report for us today and get the latest but considering that Firefox does so much more, and does it so much better, I doubt that many Firefox users will switch.
Just yesterday, Abraham rolled out a new custom search engine plug-in that works in Firefox (and in IE7 as it supports the Mozilla standard) but the plug-in doesn't work in the Mac. The plug-in allows COW users to search the COW from anywhere, even when they aren't logged into the COW. Thanks, Abraham -- and Tim Wilson who brought up the feature in a phonecall yesterday morning. In a half hour, Abraham had it live.
We have had posting features, for years now, that we cannot give to Mac users because the Mac doesn't support them. In order to bring these features to our Mac users (of which I am one and haven't been able to use the very features that we've helped develop for our Windows users), we are having to totally rewrite the system so Mac users can have accesss to them.
With the iPhone (intentionally, according to some) eschewing Flash support and working at breakneck speed to try to roll-out their own in-house option instead, I don't think they have mellowed in the slightest.
But that's just my opinion.
Ron Lindeboom
I think you mean...
"We have had posting features, for years now, that we cannot give to Mac users because the Mac doesn't support them."
I think you mean because non-proprietary, non-Microsoft-lock-in browsers don't support them.
No, I mean...
That open-source browsers like Firefox support them now -- even on the Mac -- but since many Mac users think that Safari doesn't suck and that it's somehow a good choice, they lock themselves out of advanced features that an under-powered browser like Safari just can't handle.
So unless Microsoft started building the Firefox browser, it has nothing to do with Microsoft.
Also, if Safari were following non-proprietary standards like the Mozilla project, it could work with some of the features we have added. Unfoirtunately, Safari is QUITE proprietary -- like most things Apple makes -- and follows its own path.
That's what I meant.
Ron Lindeboom
Just to set the record straight...
First, if it's a Safari problem, you should say it's a Safari problem, not a Mac problem, because (as you admit) there's no problem with Firefox on the Mac. And Safari is certainly not an "under-powered browser."
"if Safari were following non-proprietary standards like the Mozilla project"
This is completely wrong. Safari is not proprietary, and in fact it's much *less* proprietary than Internet Explorer. Safari is itself based on the WebKit open source browser engine, and Apple even provides source code back to the project. Safari was in fact the *first* browser to pass the Acid2 test -- a CSS/HTML test suite put out by the Web Standards Project.
You're also wrong about "most things Apple makes" being proprietary. Apple is doing a much better job at being non-proprietary than Microsoft. Apple's focus on the h.264 standard instead of being like MS with its Windows Media formats is an excellent example of this.
Just trying to set the record straight here...
No offense Kim but...
Firefox just began doing this, and we have had the features I earlier mentioned for over three and half years now.
In all that time, I have been and am now a Mac user. I never use PCs on the Net, except when I have to. Why? I am no fan of the multitude of nefarious things I have to watch out for as a PC user.
That said, I am also no fan of Apple protocols that are anything BUT open. It has taken the open source community years to build the kinds of workarounds and powers that PC users have had for years.
Also: If Safari is so powerful, then I guess the many (mostly) Mac-based print houses and publishers with whom I have to interact and upload files to -- which are again, mostly Mac-based -- up until just recently couldn't accommodate Safari with their forms pages, etc. Whenever I had to place an order, I needed to be in Firefox of the old granny of browsers on the Mac, Internet Explorer 5.2.
We still cannot accommodate Safari users with our latest tweaks and features added to the site. Maybe someday the programmers behind Safari will follow the Mozilla and other open standards.
Until then, they are and will remain, lacking the powers of the real browsers.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
A P.S. ...
You seem like you are focused on a Mac vs Microsoft challenge. That bores me to no end.
Apple may pay your bills but neither they nor Microsoft pay mine. In fact, they both just take money from me and this company and so I am not one whose "inner religious altar" will ever find a box of OSX or Windows upon it. They are just tools to me and when one is clearly less powerful than the other, I will say it.
We wanted to add the features for Safari users, we really did. Kathlyn loves Safari and only switched to Firefox just today because she was shocked to see all the features we now have for Firefox and Internet Explorer users that simply won't work for Safari users. (Neither Abraham, Tim Wilson or I had told her as we knew she really liked Safari and didn't really want to change.)
You are free to think what you wish about Safari but to me and the guys who have to build the COW site, it is probably our least favorite of the major browsers. (And I am typing this reply on a dual Quadcore MacPro. I am no Mac hater, but I am no Mac fanboy either.)
Best,
Ron Lindeboom
re: ps
"I am no Mac hater, but I am no Mac fanboy either"
That's fine. All I'm looking for is factual accuracy.
"real" browsers...
"That said, I am also no fan of Apple protocols that are anything BUT open."
Ummm, perhaps you could name some of these supposedly closed "Apple protocols"?
"It has taken the open source community years to build the kinds of workarounds and powers that PC users have had for years."
You mean proprietary MS lock-in features?
"Whenever I had to place an order, I needed to be in Firefox..."
Mac/Firefox works, then -- but you said that "we cannot give [features] to Mac users because the Mac doesn't support them." At least blame Safari, instead of the Mac.
"Maybe someday the programmers behind Safari will follow the Mozilla and other open standards."
Safari and its underlying open source webkit engine have actually been *ahead* of Mozilla in some areas, like CSS standards. We're talking about two different engines here, so there will always be some differences/gaps, but they are *not* due to Apple taking a proprietary path as you've suggested.
Apple as an 'open' system?
I cannot name you one Apple tool that is truly "open" in the sense of the Linux open source community.
If Microsoft came to your house and ate your dog, I am sorry, but as I said before, I am neither an Apple fanboy nor a Microsoft fanboy. It is all just silicon, plastic and a little metal to me.
The most egregious example of Apple "locked" thinking that I can give you is the latest example: the iPhone. I would much rather use it on Verizon, a company whose support of cutting edge access to the Net far surpasses that of Cingular/ATT's "Edge" system. But Apple wants its users tied to just one supplier -- AT&T. It's the kind of move that I would expect.
They have also basically locked out Flash and while I used to think that Flash would come soon, after all the rumblings I am hearing both on the iPhone and other forums here at the COW and out on the Net, I have no great hope that Flash will come anytime soon -- if ever. Why? Sources inside Apple are talking about their own support for RIA and multimedia, choosing -- if this actually plays out, which I have little doubt at this point that it will -- to ignore the protocol that has 98% market share.
You can argue all day that Apple is more open than Microsoft. I don't care. Me, I don't think that either of them is very open. You are free to see whatever you wish, just as I will continue to see Apple as a closed box, just as it has always been.
Is Microsoft more closed? Who cares? It's all just plastic, silicon and a little metal. Hardly the elements that make for a worthy religion.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
It's fine to criticize -- just base it on facts...
Quote: "I cannot name you one Apple tool that is truly "open" in the sense of the Linux open source community."
I already named an important one: Apple's WebKit rendering engine. It's the core of Safari -- a key piece of software. Apple's Rendezvous network sharing protocol is another good example.
But what does this have to do with the original point? You started by complaining about "Apple protocols that are anything BUT open," but when I asked for an example -- you've got nothing. Now you seem to be complaining that Apple doesn't open-source its application software -- raising the bar above essentially the entire commercial software industry. Geez.
You complain that Apple doesn't work with Verizon, but we already know that Apple tried to do a deal with Verizon, but the companies couldn't come to terms. Is that somehow all Apple's fault? And do you really think that Apple wouldn't prefer to sell its iPhones for *all* carriers, if it were able to negotiate compatible terms all around?
Then you complain about Apple "locking out" Flash. Did you know that the iPhone CPU is significantly slower (due to power constraints) than full-size PCs, and that the computational demands of many Flash files on the web would bring Safari on iPhone to a crawl? There's no trivial solution for this, but you immediately attribute the problem to Apple's intentions.
It's fine to criticize Apple, MS or others -- just base it on facts.
Whoa! Hold on there girl...
As I said, if Apple is so into open standards, there are 98% of users using Flash. If Apple wants to speed up Flash on an iPhone and be far more efficient while doing it using the iPhone's limited power, use Camino. Now that's an open standard browser. If Apple's so into open source things, why not use it? Or at least give us users the choice -- after all they love us, don't they? Camino is far, far faster than Safari and works in far less space overall. Even Firefox is much more efficient.
Apple has never shut off a technology like Flash from users who bought lower-powered machines before. Quicktime was available to Performa users, even though it would bring their machines to their knees. My opinion is that there is more to this than being nice guys protecting me from a hiccuping and stuttering Flash on an iPhone. You can believe whatsoever you wish.
FLASH CAN RUN ON EVEN MOBILE DEVICES...
Your point was that Apple is about being open. But only a Mac zealot would make themselves blind to the fact that Apple has never refused to support a technology that has a 98% marketshare -- and arguably one that is just as strong on the Mac side, as well (which may be the real reason for the rub).
Around this time last year,Adobe bought a company in the bay area that specializes in writing Flash to run on cell-phones, PDAs and other lower-powered devices.
The press release is here...
http://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/105/856623
If Apple would like to admit that the iPhone is less powerful than Nokias, Motorolas and other cell phones and devices that can handle Flash, I can understand that because it's less powerful and more limited, then Flash would understandably be out of the picture.
If it's not less powerful, then it proves my point that this is about Apple's basic predisposition towards things that are only open when it suits 'em.
Apple's deals are rough ones for many companies to swallow. We once had them here and they basically said that we under-delivered 90% -- even though we get millions of pageviews a month provable by Google Analytics and other major 3rd party tracking software and search engine stats. They refused these verifiable stats in favor of their own unverifiable claims. Sony has never done that. Adobe has never done that. Autodesk (and I have never been really big on them) has never done that. In my opinion, if Verizon tried to do business and got the kind of treatment we did, I wouldn't blame them for showing Apple the door. We did.
The point is openness and I will stand by my opinion, just as you are free to yours.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
It's unclear that Camino
It's unclear that Camino would be any more efficient on the iPhone, or that Camino has any performance advantage over Safari 3. And you're confusing open source with open standard. Safari is based on open standards just as much as Camino, and Safari has actually been substantially ahead of Camino in CSS standards support.
You say that Apple has "never shut off a technology like Flash from users who bought lower-powered machines," using the Performa as an example, but this reveals a complete misunderstanding of what's going on here. A Performa is still a full desktop machine with the same processor architecture. The iPhone runs on a slower, power-sparing ARM chip -- a completely different processor architecture, and only 128MB RAM. It will take time and effort to optimize Flash for this architecture, and I don't doubt that Apple is working on this. It's not the kind of thing that happens overnight, especially when you're already engaged in re-inventing the mobile UI.
As for your Adobe/Actimagine press release, I don't think you understand that either. They're talking mostly about Flash Lite. You're apparently under the impression that numerous "Nokias, Motorolas and other cell phones" handle standard Flash, but that's incorrect. Some current cell phones handle Flash Lite, but handling full Flash requires fairly heavy-duty smart-phones -- and a Flash plug-in optimized for the platform in question. Flash Lite isn't enough to support access to all standard web content, which is the iPhone's goal/philosophy.
I see that you had an unpleasant experience in a business dealing with Apple, and that goes a long way in explaining your bias. You've made a number of claims, and really supported none of them, other than that Apple can be a difficult business partner.
For every problem, there is a workaround
I never said that the Adobe press release was for a full Flash. I think that the press release is quite clear as to what is being done and is why I added the link (rather than simply pulling things from it).
Flash supports scalable distribution and I am not sure that you know what that means...
Also, I quite well understand the difference between open standards and open source. I have a network here in the office that is both full of many Macs and also an assortment of Windows machines -- as well as a server farm to support the COW that is 100% Linux. We have to build things that run across a wide range of platforms and tools and support a myriad of browsers, thank you. I think that we may even know a bit about what we do after 12 years of doing it.
I learned long ago that for every problem, there is a workaround. It doesn't take magic to solve it, just diigence and some creative thinking.
Have fun,
Ron Lindeboom
Fake Steve Jobs weighs in, of course
Check Fake Steve Jobs to see his iPhone response, He's at his most brutal and most hilarious. It's the entry that begins "Dear early iPhone adopters." You can also follow this direct link.
Note: adult language aplenty, throughout the site.
Another of my favorite recent entries, his response to NBC re: iTunes.
And agreed Ron, the most distinctive aspect of the Mac experience from day one has been its closed nature. Makes for a great experience if you buy all the way in, though, which is why Steve did it.
Ain't nuthin' going to salvage Safari on Windows though. What a stinker. The first version of Netscape worked better than SOW....an acronym that speaks for itself.
Firefox on both platforms for me.
iPhone buyers getting $100 Apple credit
Early iPhone buyers are getting a $100 Apple credit:
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/openiphoneletter/
I've had my iPhone almost 10 weeks now -- so for me, the $100 premium is not even $1.50/day -- less than regular coffee at Starbucks. Given the choice I'd definitely still buy it on day 1. At $399, for what it does, it's now a real steal....
Why the cut so early?
The one thing I don't get in all of this is why make the price cut so early? The phones appeared to be selling well, Steve Jobs says he "wants to put his in a lot of stockings this year." So make the price cut in early November. What I've seen on a number of mainstream sites now are articles about Angry iPhone customers, Is a $100 discount enough, and other negative press reports about Apple and the iPhone.
Of course early adopters run the risk of getting burned when the price drops on something. Heck I even said the price was too high on this very blog when it came out and said I was waiting for it to drop to around $299. But to do the price drop so quickly and well before the Christmas shopping season that Steve alluded to seems to be a big mistake.
The negative press certainly does overshadow the announcement of the new iPods, or I guess we should call them the iPhone without the phone.
S. Jobs apologizes...sort of
What negative press? I haven't found any yet, and I've been looking. There have been articles quoting people who are upset, but most coverage I've seen has been entirely upbeat.
I've even seen a couple of reports saying that this was an intentional PR stunt, planned from the beginning -- cut the price to boost sales, and give a STORE CREDIT that cost them a dozen or two bucks.
Except because there's so little in the Apple store that costs $100, the store credit creates an enormous amount of NEW revenue from early adopters, on top of new phone sales.
Which is why the price was cut. You've probably seen quotes from Steve saying they'll meet their originally stated 3-month targets....but note that the price cut comes almost exactly 2 months into the 3.
In the meantime, he collected money he NEVER would have if the original price was $200 lower. So think of that money as fallen from heaven. He's already got it, and it ain't going away. Now he gets new phone sales, plus brand new revenue from the gift certificates that he'd never have gotten before...
So while I'm not convinced that this was the plan from the beginning - even *I'M* not tha cynical about Apple -- I still see it as working out dramatically in favor of both their image and their bottom line.
And seriously, look around online. I see a whole bunch of people praising this as an example of Steve's marketing genius. Sure can't argue with what's going to be truckloads of dough.
Here's Steve's non-apology.
Kinda disenguous if you ask me. "I'm sorry you feel that way" kind of thing. Whatever, dude.
Here's Fake Steve's first non-apology. Much more compelling, and frankly more sincere.
Here's his second. Even more sincere. Sincerely rude. :-)