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iPhone: Standard hardware specs, standard input mechanisms, standard form factor. Nokia: Hundreds of different hardware specs to target, dozens of input mechan

iPhone: Standard hardware specs, standard input mechanisms, standard form factor. Nokia: Hundreds of different hardware specs to target, dozens of input mechanisms, wildly differing form factors.

kqr2 18y ago
Nokia: Hundreds of different hardware specs to target, dozens of input mechanisms, wildly differing form factors Which probably forces developers to reduce everything down to the lowest common denominator.
10ren 18y ago
Macs vs PCs all over again? Cheap and customizable won over expensive, designed and usable. But Apple has cracked a mass-market since then (iPods), so either they've learned how to dominate or (more likely) found the market that suits them in the form of "special-purpose consumer electronics". This latter hypothesis predicts that if the iPhone category become a general computing device, Apple will lose.
- DougBTX 18y ago
  Looks like we are still waiting for the "IBM Compatible" of smart phones. I also wonder what effect customization of hardware will have. With OS 3.0, hardware add-ons for the iPhone just got a whole lot easier. Arguably the iPhone is already highly customizable, selling a billion apps which don't require a fixed keyboard.
  - 10ren 18y ago
    Yes, "IBM Compatible" is it exactly: modular vs. integrated. Integrated components (hardware and software) enables them to work very together, in terms of efficiency as well as usability. To make something as tiny and as fast as the iPhone means you have to squeeze every last bit of performance out of your components. Apple have done such a brilliant job, it is not at all apparent that the iPhone processor is on the slow side (about 600MHz [1]). Modular design becomes possible when the components become faster, because you don't need to integrate to get adequate performance. You can slap things together, even mix and match. Anyone can do it. It get customizable, but the most significant result of fast-enough components is that it gets cheaper. Faster components are inevitable. When they're fast enough, the iPhone acquires comparable competitors. How fast is "fast-enough" for a smart phone? I don't know, but according to Moore's Law, smart phone processors will hit netbook speeds (1.6GHz) in a bit over 2 years: 27 June 2011 [1] http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/01/iphone-processor-found-620mhz-arm/ http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/01/iphone-processor-found-62...
thwarted 18y ago
Nothing is static. Apple dumped firewire. Each generation of iPod has wildly different input methods. Even the default meanings of the function keys on Apple keyboards and laptops have moved around. Nokia's phone product lines have been around a lot longer and sell to a lot more people. Give it time, I'm sure Apple will release an iPhone that has something new or isn't directly compatible with a previous version in some way.
- mishmash 18y ago
  FireWire and scroll wheels are hardware implementation details, abstracted in software, while the function key locations only matter in the physical world (i.e. they aren't sending different keycodes to the OS).

iPhone: Standard hardware specs, standard input mechanisms, standard form factor. Nokia: Hundreds of different hardware specs to target, dozens of input mechanisms, wildly differing form factors.

kqr2 18y ago

Nokia: Hundreds of different hardware specs to target, dozens of input mechanisms, wildly differing form factors Which probably forces developers to reduce everything down to the lowest common denominator.

10ren 18y ago

Macs vs PCs all over again? Cheap and customizable won over expensive, designed and usable. But Apple has cracked a mass-market since then (iPods), so either they've learned how to dominate or (more likely) found the market that suits them in the form of "special-purpose consumer electronics". This latter hypothesis predicts that if the iPhone category become a general computing device, Apple will lose.

DougBTX 18y ago
Looks like we are still waiting for the "IBM Compatible" of smart phones. I also wonder what effect customization of hardware will have. With OS 3.0, hardware add-ons for the iPhone just got a whole lot easier. Arguably the iPhone is already highly customizable, selling a billion apps which don't require a fixed keyboard.
- 10ren 18y ago
  Yes, "IBM Compatible" is it exactly: modular vs. integrated. Integrated components (hardware and software) enables them to work very together, in terms of efficiency as well as usability. To make something as tiny and as fast as the iPhone means you have to squeeze every last bit of performance out of your components. Apple have done such a brilliant job, it is not at all apparent that the iPhone processor is on the slow side (about 600MHz [1]). Modular design becomes possible when the components become faster, because you don't need to integrate to get adequate performance. You can slap things together, even mix and match. Anyone can do it. It get customizable, but the most significant result of fast-enough components is that it gets cheaper. Faster components are inevitable. When they're fast enough, the iPhone acquires comparable competitors. How fast is "fast-enough" for a smart phone? I don't know, but according to Moore's Law, smart phone processors will hit netbook speeds (1.6GHz) in a bit over 2 years: 27 June 2011 [1] http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/01/iphone-processor-found-620mhz-arm/ http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/01/iphone-processor-found-62...

thwarted 18y ago

Nothing is static. Apple dumped firewire. Each generation of iPod has wildly different input methods. Even the default meanings of the function keys on Apple keyboards and laptops have moved around. Nokia's phone product lines have been around a lot longer and sell to a lot more people. Give it time, I'm sure Apple will release an iPhone that has something new or isn't directly compatible with a previous version in some way.

mishmash 18y ago
FireWire and scroll wheels are hardware implementation details, abstracted in software, while the function key locations only matter in the physical world (i.e. they aren't sending different keycodes to the OS).