iPhone vs PalmPre War has already been won.

[croyde]

My 3 and 7 year old boys were playing with both in the O2 shop and although I have to say that I liked the look of the Palm Pre, it was my 3 year old that got a handle on the OS very quickly yet when I asked them which one they preferred it was unanimous.....the iPhone.

I asked why and my 7 year old said "Because it just works, Dad!"

War over.

[branflakes]

So what you're saying is the iPhone is for kids? Sounds about right.

[croyde]

branflakes said:

So what you're saying is the iPhone is for kids? Sounds about right.

Don't know as I have a Nokia

[Getragdogleg]

Or is it that iphone is a more recognisable brand with a bigger marketing budget and an ad agency that cleverly targets the people who will believe that the Iphone is cool because its "in" appealing to kids, hipsters and with-it exec types who wear "fun" ties with twee little waistcoats.

[croyde]

It was only the "it just works, Dad!" sentence that was important.

My kids have never used either phone before or seen any of the adverts as they are glued to Cbeebies or Disney Channel.

Its just the fact that anyone, it would appear, can pick up an iPhone and use it whilst they need instructions for anything else. My N82 does most of what the iPhone does but boy is it slow and clunky and I still need to look up the odd thing in the manual over a year after getting it.

[maser_spyder]

However you look at it;

It. Just. Works.

Simples.

I remember the Nokias of old, when others were trying to do clever things with wifi and SIP accounts, you could still get a Nokia that just made calls, took piccys and had a good predictive text. The whole thing then got just too complicated. iPhone has changed that back again, like it or loathe it!

Edited by maser_spyder on Saturday 24th October 20:06

[Getragdogleg]

Ahh, i have a few mates that have them and they seem good when i have looked at them and had a bit of a play, I am on the htc hero and its as good as the iphone to me, I think the Iphone gets a lot of good credit off the ipod, that for the most part works and people can associate the two easily.

not knocking the iphone or your kids, just that its popular because of its market position.

[jamoor]

the iPhone is an extremely basic handset with very limited features, so it's easy to use.

Personally I prefer the blackberry bold as it's much more suited to my needs (I used to have an iphone 3g) I bought the bold because I was offered one cheap.

I am now looking carefully at the pre as it's a blend of the good of both phones in theory.

[chr15b]

croyde said:

branflakes said:

So what you're saying is the iPhone is for kids? Sounds about right.

Don't know as I have a Nokia

i was 100% nokia for over 10 years.. until the n95, i'm going to take some tempting back after that phone.

personally the last 'proper' phone they made was the 6310

[cyberface]

Getragdogleg said:

Ahh, i have a few mates that have them and they seem good when i have looked at them and had a bit of a play, I am on the htc hero and its as good as the iphone to me, I think the Iphone gets a lot of good credit off the ipod, that for the most part works and people can associate the two easily.

not knocking the iphone or your kids, just that its popular because of its market position.

Take a think about that market position.

Before the first iPhone was launched (which was very expensive and had a weird, new business model, and was US-only despite being a GSM phone which suited international sales better than the US, which has a weird GSM / CDMA divide), Apple had ZERO market share in the fiercely competitive mobile phone market.

The mobile phone market is cut-throat competitive, and Apple waltz in with an overpriced device and clean up to the point where you're saying it's only popular because of its market position... how many other manufacturers have walked into a fiercely competitive marketplace and suddenly taken a huge chunk out of it?

That is more of a big deal than the iPhone itself, IMO. Personally I love the iPhone but only under the condition that it's unlocked and full-root-access jailbroken... otherwise it's a locked-down toy for kids as far as I'm concerned. But give it its freedom, and it's as powerful as any other portable Unix-based machine. And multitouch is a revolution, no doubt about that.

[jamoor]

cyberface said:

Getragdogleg said:

Ahh, i have a few mates that have them and they seem good when i have looked at them and had a bit of a play, I am on the htc hero and its as good as the iphone to me, I think the Iphone gets a lot of good credit off the ipod, that for the most part works and people can associate the two easily.

not knocking the iphone or your kids, just that its popular because of its market position.

Take a think about that market position.

Before the first iPhone was launched (which was very expensive and had a weird, new business model, and was US-only despite being a GSM phone which suited international sales better than the US, which has a weird GSM / CDMA divide), Apple had ZERO market share in the fiercely competitive mobile phone market.

The mobile phone market is cut-throat competitive, and Apple waltz in with an overpriced device and clean up to the point where you're saying it's only popular because of its market position... how many other manufacturers have walked into a fiercely competitive marketplace and suddenly taken a huge chunk out of it?

That is more of a big deal than the iPhone itself, IMO. Personally I love the iPhone but only under the condition that it's unlocked and full-root-access jailbroken... otherwise it's a locked-down toy for kids as far as I'm concerned. But give it its freedom, and it's as powerful as any other portable Unix-based machine. And multitouch is a revolution, no doubt about that.

All it did was revolutionise mobile web browsing and usability, that's all.

As you say, unless you tinker with it heavily and keep tinkering at every update, it's still a big tonka toy, which is why business users aren't interested.

[cyberface]

jamoor said:

cyberface said:

Getragdogleg said:

Ahh, i have a few mates that have them and they seem good when i have looked at them and had a bit of a play, I am on the htc hero and its as good as the iphone to me, I think the Iphone gets a lot of good credit off the ipod, that for the most part works and people can associate the two easily.

not knocking the iphone or your kids, just that its popular because of its market position.

Take a think about that market position.

Before the first iPhone was launched (which was very expensive and had a weird, new business model, and was US-only despite being a GSM phone which suited international sales better than the US, which has a weird GSM / CDMA divide), Apple had ZERO market share in the fiercely competitive mobile phone market.

The mobile phone market is cut-throat competitive, and Apple waltz in with an overpriced device and clean up to the point where you're saying it's only popular because of its market position... how many other manufacturers have walked into a fiercely competitive marketplace and suddenly taken a huge chunk out of it?

That is more of a big deal than the iPhone itself, IMO. Personally I love the iPhone but only under the condition that it's unlocked and full-root-access jailbroken... otherwise it's a locked-down toy for kids as far as I'm concerned. But give it its freedom, and it's as powerful as any other portable Unix-based machine. And multitouch is a revolution, no doubt about that.

All it did was revolutionise mobile web browsing and usability, that's all.

As you say, unless you tinker with it heavily and keep tinkering at every update, it's still a big tonka toy, which is why business users aren't interested.

I'm a business user... get a factory unlocked phone and all you need is a single jailbreak every major OS upgrade, not too much tinkering required. If you do it on the cheap and want to unlock a locked phone, though, it's a lot more aggro.

I can think of a few rather interesting vertical market applications for iPhones, but they require jailbroken unix tools, so I guess that (and the price) puts off businesses from developing an in-house vertical solution using them.

Tellingly though.... Apple themselves use Windows handsets for EPOS in their stores. I always sneer about this and every employee is sheepishly embarrassed when they have to reboot the card reader and it shows the Windows screen...

[dibbly_dobbler]

cyberface said:

it's a locked-down toy for kids as far as I'm concerned

Oh dearie me. Whilst there is no doubting your tech-god status I'm going to have to take umbrage with that little nugget ! Describing 90% of (locked) iPhone users in this way is both contemptuous and specious - do you really think we (ie normal folk) would pay many hundreds of pounds for a toy !?

And of the 10% which are unlocked how many would you say do enough with the newly freed up functionality to significantly alter the overall utility of the device ? Ok - it's more then zero but not by much I reckon.

Come down from Mount Olympos and rejoin the real world (if you still know where it is !).

[6655321]

Rather than have a war, why don't folk just buy the one they want, and quit making a war where there isn't one?

[jamoor]

cyberface said:

jamoor said:

cyberface said:

Getragdogleg said:

Ahh, i have a few mates that have them and they seem good when i have looked at them and had a bit of a play, I am on the htc hero and its as good as the iphone to me, I think the Iphone gets a lot of good credit off the ipod, that for the most part works and people can associate the two easily.

not knocking the iphone or your kids, just that its popular because of its market position.

Take a think about that market position.

Before the first iPhone was launched (which was very expensive and had a weird, new business model, and was US-only despite being a GSM phone which suited international sales better than the US, which has a weird GSM / CDMA divide), Apple had ZERO market share in the fiercely competitive mobile phone market.

The mobile phone market is cut-throat competitive, and Apple waltz in with an overpriced device and clean up to the point where you're saying it's only popular because of its market position... how many other manufacturers have walked into a fiercely competitive marketplace and suddenly taken a huge chunk out of it?

That is more of a big deal than the iPhone itself, IMO. Personally I love the iPhone but only under the condition that it's unlocked and full-root-access jailbroken... otherwise it's a locked-down toy for kids as far as I'm concerned. But give it its freedom, and it's as powerful as any other portable Unix-based machine. And multitouch is a revolution, no doubt about that.

All it did was revolutionise mobile web browsing and usability, that's all.

As you say, unless you tinker with it heavily and keep tinkering at every update, it's still a big tonka toy, which is why business users aren't interested.

I'm a business user... get a factory unlocked phone and all you need is a single jailbreak every major OS upgrade, not too much tinkering required. If you do it on the cheap and want to unlock a locked phone, though, it's a lot more aggro.

I can think of a few rather interesting vertical market applications for iPhones, but they require jailbroken unix tools, so I guess that (and the price) puts off businesses from developing an in-house vertical solution using them.

Tellingly though.... Apple themselves use Windows handsets for EPOS in their stores. I always sneer about this and every employee is sheepishly embarrassed when they have to reboot the card reader and it shows the Windows screen...

In what way are you a business user, do you work for a large multinational, or do you run bobs builders with an @aol.com email address??

[agent006]

dibbly_dobbler said:

And of the 10% which are unlocked

I'd say you've over estimated that by at least ten times.

[page3]

jamoor said:

the iPhone is an extremely basic handset with very limited features, so it's easy to use.

Clearly a full UNIX OS, capacitance multi-touch, integrated desktop software and 100,000+ applications mean nothing.

[Frik]

jamoor said:

All it did was revolutionise mobile web browsing and usability, that's all.

Yeah, what a load of st.

[dibbly_dobbler]

agent006 said:

dibbly_dobbler said:

And of the 10% which are unlocked

I'd say you've over estimated that by at least ten times.

You may be right - I was quoting Captain Condescension himself from another thread.

[jamoor]

page3 said:

jamoor said:

the iPhone is an extremely basic handset with very limited features, so it's easy to use.

Clearly a full UNIX OS, capacitance multi-touch, integrated desktop software and 100,000+ applications mean nothing.

It lacks some very basic functions and 100,000 applications which mainly consist of apps such as calculate the acceleration fo your car isn't exactly great.

Also UNIX OS which noone can actually use.