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The best example I can give you is this:
Imagine if you spent a ton of money to buy a Ferrari, and it came with a Camry engine, are you gonna say screw it its all good, I dont need to go fast anyway, or are you gonna be wanting more?
Even if you knew before hand that it came with a Camry engine, but you bought it anyway because the experience and status you get from owning it was so bad a, would you be wrong in still wanting to have a Ferrari engine in the Ferrari considering you spent Ferrari money on it? What you were arguing in your post is no one really needs the Ferrari engine because a Camry engine will still get you from point A to point B, but it will take longer.
Furthermore, to cover the loose ends, yeah its true that you cant go fast in the Ferrari anyway since there are speed limits here in the US (aka AT&T), but that guy on the German autobahn (aka iphone users outside the US) would definately want the better engine since he has no speed limits, especially when less expensive Mustangs and Firebirds (aka other smartphones) are speeding past him with their souped up engines.
iPhone 3GS limited to 384 Kbps upstream
MultiQuote
#58
NickDunklee 
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Posted 10 July 2009 - 10:43 PM
Good analogies.
However, how would you feel if you bought a Ferrari with a Camry engine, but the dealer and the manufacturer never told you that you were getting a Camry engine.
In fact, you had to wait until that model of car came out and someone had the money to go buy the Ferrari just to take it apart, identify the engine components and let you know that it only had a Camry engine?
Granted, the analogy breaks down here because on cars you can open the hood and take a peek for yourself. Not so easy with phones.
However, how would you feel if you bought a Ferrari with a Camry engine, but the dealer and the manufacturer never told you that you were getting a Camry engine.
In fact, you had to wait until that model of car came out and someone had the money to go buy the Ferrari just to take it apart, identify the engine components and let you know that it only had a Camry engine?
Granted, the analogy breaks down here because on cars you can open the hood and take a peek for yourself. Not so easy with phones.
#59
Sulis
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Posted 11 July 2009 - 01:16 AM
Oh, Lordy - it's car analogy time. There ought to be some sort of Godwin's Law to cover it... :)
Analogies, like statistics, can be used to cut both ways, but I will leave this one alone for now. Let me just re-reiterate: Apple is not a democracy. You get what you're given.
What? No screen on the iPod Shuffle? Outrageous! No-one will stand for it!
No Cut and Paste on the iPhone 2g? It will fail!
Until Apple adds {insert infinite list of whiny demands} I will never buy an iPhone! Never, you hear me!
Etc,. etc...
Rolls Royce famously refuse to give the power output of their engines (uh-oh: car stuff again). They merely say it's "sufficient". Most people don't care about the processor in their phone - heck, most people probably don't even know their phone has a processor, let alone a GPU. They don't study benchmarks, or watch bake-offs, or jailbreak their phones. They are happy in their ignorance, as long as the damn thing works well.
Yes, I would like to have faster upload speeds. Is it high on my list of priorities for the iPhone? Nope. Personally, I'd like:
? OLED screen (better visibility outside, potentially better battery life)
? Multi-tasking (done right, to avoid using up memory needlessly)
? Greater key options on the keyboard when in landscape mode
? Folders in the icon screens
? Intelliscreen built-in
Now most if not all of those things are already available on other handsets. So I guess they'll probably come to the iPhone sometime, either through a SW update, or in the next-gen hardware. That's OK - I know that all tech hardware is obsolete in some form or another the moment you buy it. However, I'm happy enough with what's being offered now not to get exercised about it.
You and others here obviously feel differently. Good luck with that.
Analogies, like statistics, can be used to cut both ways, but I will leave this one alone for now. Let me just re-reiterate: Apple is not a democracy. You get what you're given.
What? No screen on the iPod Shuffle? Outrageous! No-one will stand for it!
No Cut and Paste on the iPhone 2g? It will fail!
Until Apple adds {insert infinite list of whiny demands} I will never buy an iPhone! Never, you hear me!
Etc,. etc...
Rolls Royce famously refuse to give the power output of their engines (uh-oh: car stuff again). They merely say it's "sufficient". Most people don't care about the processor in their phone - heck, most people probably don't even know their phone has a processor, let alone a GPU. They don't study benchmarks, or watch bake-offs, or jailbreak their phones. They are happy in their ignorance, as long as the damn thing works well.
Yes, I would like to have faster upload speeds. Is it high on my list of priorities for the iPhone? Nope. Personally, I'd like:
? OLED screen (better visibility outside, potentially better battery life)
? Multi-tasking (done right, to avoid using up memory needlessly)
? Greater key options on the keyboard when in landscape mode
? Folders in the icon screens
? Intelliscreen built-in
Now most if not all of those things are already available on other handsets. So I guess they'll probably come to the iPhone sometime, either through a SW update, or in the next-gen hardware. That's OK - I know that all tech hardware is obsolete in some form or another the moment you buy it. However, I'm happy enough with what's being offered now not to get exercised about it.
You and others here obviously feel differently. Good luck with that.
#60
NickDunklee
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Posted 11 July 2009 - 11:38 AM
Yeah that's the thing with analogies and statistics, they can be all but useless in a lot of situations. You can distort them both to fit an argumentative position until everyone's blue in the face.
Again though, in this situation it's just the fact they're crossing a bit into the edge of a disclosure gray area. "iPhone 3Gs is BLAZING FAST 7.2MBPS HSDPA!" Most people don't know what HSDPA is, in fact they don't even know what 3G is. I still have some very smart friends that don't realize WCDMA lets you use voice and data at the same time, while EVDO/1x is voice OR data. Just the other day a friend found out he can use his Internet while talking on long phone calls, he was stoked!
I just don't like Apple slipping down the path of all of the telecom companies that throw out big numbers without any baseline, comparison or consistency. Especially in this case as if the consumer wants to know more about the equipment, that information is conveniently non-existent. If Rolls Royce doesn't list their power output I would do the same, I wouldn't buy one until I knew what it could or could not do. However I am not everyone, I am just me. The only reason I bought an iPhone 3Gs is because it has the faster processor than and double the RAM of the 3G. Unfortunately, I couldn't make my decision on the 3Gs until after it launched and someone took it apart to find out it had double RAM and faster processor - Apple still doesn't list such specifications.
The radio speed doesn't impact me as much. I live in America, I know AT&T's network is horrible, no amount of radio magic will help me in this country. I was in the midwest last December when AT&T's entire cell network collapsed because a switch center wasn't properly protected against the elements and they didn't have ample backup power. That's just irresponsibility on AT&T's part. Verizon, T-mobile, even Sprint worked fine, while AT&T had no service in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and a few other states, all because they were too cheap to maintain one building. Still, those in other countries with ubiquitous 3G might say otherwise. I have friends in Europe with HSPA networks that are blazing fast, and they'd be glad to have the speed boost in both directions.
On the other hand, nobody will ever be satisfied. It couldn't do MMS, people complained even though they could just email images. Apple added apps, people complained they didn't multitask. Apple added horizontal keyboards, people complained it still doesn't have a hardware keyboard. Apple added stereo bluetooth, people (me) complain that it doesn't support true stereo bluetooth as it doesn't support AVRCP making headsets and car kits useless. It doesn't matter if you make a phone do everything, it still won't do enough for everyone. I personally would be more content with slightly slower 3G data in the handset in exchange for a battery that lasts more than a day. My 3Gs is always in a Mophie JuicePack 3G so I can get decent battery life. It makes the phone HUGE though. So I really don't care what the hardware does or does not do, just that the manufacturer discloses the information necessary for consumers that want to make an informed decision. They do it with Macs. Their Mac spec pages show bus speeds and RAM speeds and everything. Why not the same with the phone specs? Users that don't want to know this information don't have to look at it.
Oh and as for an OLED screen - they don't reflect light, so they actually work worse outdoors in direct sun than the transreflective LCD. OLED generates its own light instead of letting through or reflecting a backlight like LCD, so its light has to be more powerful than the ambient light around it to make it visible. This could probably be solved with a polarizing filter over the display to direct light outward in a concentrated direction and block ambient light from diffracting around but that'd reduce the display angle and make it tougher for the display to work in both portrait and landscape. Apple does a very good job with their LCD panels, in my unofficial comparison of handsets, the iPhone is the most easy to read in sunlight compared to BlackBerry Curve/Bold, Sony XPeria, Palm Pre, anything Windows Mobile and a few others. Nokia's Eseries is the only other line I've seen come close.
This is a good discussion, I like it. Thanks for the comment Sulis.
Again though, in this situation it's just the fact they're crossing a bit into the edge of a disclosure gray area. "iPhone 3Gs is BLAZING FAST 7.2MBPS HSDPA!" Most people don't know what HSDPA is, in fact they don't even know what 3G is. I still have some very smart friends that don't realize WCDMA lets you use voice and data at the same time, while EVDO/1x is voice OR data. Just the other day a friend found out he can use his Internet while talking on long phone calls, he was stoked!
I just don't like Apple slipping down the path of all of the telecom companies that throw out big numbers without any baseline, comparison or consistency. Especially in this case as if the consumer wants to know more about the equipment, that information is conveniently non-existent. If Rolls Royce doesn't list their power output I would do the same, I wouldn't buy one until I knew what it could or could not do. However I am not everyone, I am just me. The only reason I bought an iPhone 3Gs is because it has the faster processor than and double the RAM of the 3G. Unfortunately, I couldn't make my decision on the 3Gs until after it launched and someone took it apart to find out it had double RAM and faster processor - Apple still doesn't list such specifications.
The radio speed doesn't impact me as much. I live in America, I know AT&T's network is horrible, no amount of radio magic will help me in this country. I was in the midwest last December when AT&T's entire cell network collapsed because a switch center wasn't properly protected against the elements and they didn't have ample backup power. That's just irresponsibility on AT&T's part. Verizon, T-mobile, even Sprint worked fine, while AT&T had no service in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and a few other states, all because they were too cheap to maintain one building. Still, those in other countries with ubiquitous 3G might say otherwise. I have friends in Europe with HSPA networks that are blazing fast, and they'd be glad to have the speed boost in both directions.
On the other hand, nobody will ever be satisfied. It couldn't do MMS, people complained even though they could just email images. Apple added apps, people complained they didn't multitask. Apple added horizontal keyboards, people complained it still doesn't have a hardware keyboard. Apple added stereo bluetooth, people (me) complain that it doesn't support true stereo bluetooth as it doesn't support AVRCP making headsets and car kits useless. It doesn't matter if you make a phone do everything, it still won't do enough for everyone. I personally would be more content with slightly slower 3G data in the handset in exchange for a battery that lasts more than a day. My 3Gs is always in a Mophie JuicePack 3G so I can get decent battery life. It makes the phone HUGE though. So I really don't care what the hardware does or does not do, just that the manufacturer discloses the information necessary for consumers that want to make an informed decision. They do it with Macs. Their Mac spec pages show bus speeds and RAM speeds and everything. Why not the same with the phone specs? Users that don't want to know this information don't have to look at it.
Oh and as for an OLED screen - they don't reflect light, so they actually work worse outdoors in direct sun than the transreflective LCD. OLED generates its own light instead of letting through or reflecting a backlight like LCD, so its light has to be more powerful than the ambient light around it to make it visible. This could probably be solved with a polarizing filter over the display to direct light outward in a concentrated direction and block ambient light from diffracting around but that'd reduce the display angle and make it tougher for the display to work in both portrait and landscape. Apple does a very good job with their LCD panels, in my unofficial comparison of handsets, the iPhone is the most easy to read in sunlight compared to BlackBerry Curve/Bold, Sony XPeria, Palm Pre, anything Windows Mobile and a few others. Nokia's Eseries is the only other line I've seen come close.
This is a good discussion, I like it. Thanks for the comment Sulis.
#61
mzahran
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Posted 11 July 2009 - 12:42 PM
No one needs:
? OLED screen (better visibility outside, potentially better battery life)
? Multi-tasking (done right, to avoid using up memory needlessly)
? Greater key options on the keyboard when in landscape mode
? Folders in the icon screens
? Intelliscreen built-in
"20 million people" agree with me. Quit whining. Go buy another phone if you want these features.
? OLED screen (better visibility outside, potentially better battery life)
? Multi-tasking (done right, to avoid using up memory needlessly)
? Greater key options on the keyboard when in landscape mode
? Folders in the icon screens
? Intelliscreen built-in
"20 million people" agree with me. Quit whining. Go buy another phone if you want these features.
#62
Sulis
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Posted 12 July 2009 - 01:39 AM
Thanks, NickDunklee - I wasn't aware that OLED screens performed worse outside. In which case I'm pretty happy with the existing screen - though, like you, more battery life is highest on my list. I'm really not sure where greater battery life is going to come from: most likely it will just be a series of small incremental improvements to both hardware and software.
As you say, most people don't know what HSDPA is - I'd be surprised if that many people realised that their broadband connection has different upstream and downstream speeds. I agree that Apple doesn't go into detail on specs, but I don't see anywhere that they've been misleading. My impression was that they were pretty upfront about double the RAM, though - that is by far the most tempting thing about the 3GS for me at the moment...
As you say, most people don't know what HSDPA is - I'd be surprised if that many people realised that their broadband connection has different upstream and downstream speeds. I agree that Apple doesn't go into detail on specs, but I don't see anywhere that they've been misleading. My impression was that they were pretty upfront about double the RAM, though - that is by far the most tempting thing about the 3GS for me at the moment...
#63
drimwit
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Posted 13 July 2009 - 06:28 AM
mzahran said:
No one needs:
? OLED screen (better visibility outside, potentially better battery life)
? Multi-tasking (done right, to avoid using up memory needlessly)
? Greater key options on the keyboard when in landscape mode
? Folders in the icon screens
? Intelliscreen built-in
"20 million people" agree with me. Quit whining. Go buy another phone if you want these features.
? OLED screen (better visibility outside, potentially better battery life)
? Multi-tasking (done right, to avoid using up memory needlessly)
? Greater key options on the keyboard when in landscape mode
? Folders in the icon screens
? Intelliscreen built-in
"20 million people" agree with me. Quit whining. Go buy another phone if you want these features.
Ugh. How can all these people know that they don't need these things unless they've had a chance to try them?
