i have to admit, i'm nearly tempted to get one of the new iPhones. Nearly. Then reality hits me.
Why? Well, not because of any of the new features. Yeah 3G is faster (duh), and a built in A-GPS is kinda nice. The camera is crap, and the MP3 storage is retarded, but then this is an iPod and how else would Steve sell Macs to the minions?
No, what makes this device actually intriguing to me is the iPhone 2.0 API kit. In theory, i as a developer have the ability to code up anything that Apple can. This means that should i want to put Java, Opera, OpenSSH or any other such product on the device, it's conceivable that i could, even if Apple doesn't want me to. Personally, i don't buy the whole load of crap that "background applications require too much battery power" since Palm managed to do that with proper thread handling and low power polling states, and you can't say that Palm devices sucked batteries dry in minutes like WinCE devices did. (i'm also reminded of one of the very first popular plugins for the old box Mac, Switcher, which allowed you to run multiple apps because Apple swore you couldn't.)
Mind you, i'm still reserving judgment. Mostly because of things like "Yeah, the new phone is $200, provided you lock into a 2 year contract, don't want to upgrade in that time, and have to activate the thing in the store." (i don't want it as a phone. i'd want it as a portable device. How much does it cost without the lock in?) Plus with Apple's penchant to not disclose everything, i'm waiting for folks far smarter than me to bypass Apple's "helpfulness" and make something actually usable.
i'd almost be tempted to get an iTouch, well, except that it's missing stuff it shouldn't be (mic, speaker) and since it's the obvious red-headed step child (seriously, i know it's not a phone. i know it's significantly cheaper than an iPhone. But constantly charging iTouch folks for upgrades and features is just being a dick.), i'm pretty sure that it's going to be the next generation Newton.
Like many things of Cupertino's origin, the nearly get it right. Oh well, at least i didn't spend $500 for a now discontinued and obsolete device less than a year ago. (That'd be the 4GB iPhone v1)
Granted, i could have used the "rebate" check to buy it's replacement, though.
I'm actually at the WWDC… the development tools for the thing are awesome. As for the iPod comment, it looks to me as if Apple is going after CE/Exchange… it wouldnt surprise me to see mobileMe built as an enterprise app and targeted at business. Given how well Vista is doing, and how bad Outbreak/Exchange are, I wouldnt be surprised to find Apple desktops in offices in the near future.
Constantly charging iTouch folks for upgrades is a Sarbox thing. On phones, Apple gets a constant revenue stream from AT&T. On iTouch, no such revenue stream, so they can't give away the upgrades, but have to charge something.
I've got an SSH client on my iPod touch right now ;) Granted its jail broken and if I update I'll probably bork my iPod, but I've got a full shell and SSH access (both ways)!
But I admit, I'll probably fork out some extra cash to get the new 2.0 software so I can do some development on it, sucks that touch users have to pay to upgrade. Oh wells..
Dave: Wait a minute. iTouch is an Apple device. Nobody else makes one. Nobody else can produce software updates for the device (legally, at least. You have to break DCMA to do it.) That means that Apple alone owns the device and the associated software with it. If they add a feature or function to said device, it's not like the revenue for said device changes. That's like saying my computer is valued at the sum total of all the programs I install on it, including OSS stuff like Putty or SSH.
By that rationale, Apple can't release iPhone 2.0 SDK because they would be allowing additional "revenue" points like Java to be installed on their devices. For that matter, if the law really dictated that, Microsoft, Garmin, Archos and every other device manufacturer would also be restricted to prevent any item of value to be loaded onto their device (e.g. a photo, music, recording, etc.) because that effectively changes the valuation of that device.
I call BS.
I don't call BS… I call SEC — the same people that make it better for a company's reporting to give away restricted stock to employees than to give them options to buys the same stock for a set price.
Basically the reason is that Apple books iPhone revenue over time, where as they book iPod revenue the moment it is sold. My understanding is that because of the fact that the revenue for the iPhone is already booked, giving away the update would require Apple to restate the previous earnings to include the expense of the update… but if they sell the update, then they don't have to do this. Even if that's not the specific cause, the reason Apple is charging for the iPod touch updates is because of SEC rules that differ based on the revenue being booked upfront on the sale.
What Josh said. They've already booked the revenue, so they either charge for the upgrade or they restate their expenses on the development of the product, which leads to all sorts of messiness and possible Sarbannes-Oxley (go look it up on wikipedia) violations.
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would you say you were "tempted by the fruit of another" jr?