iPhone photography

[NikonWeb]

My personal iPhone photography blog: http://iphoneshooter.posterous.com/

Most photos are processed using the BestCamera app (http://www.thebestcamera.com). Posterous.com - which I found just a few days ago - seems to be a perfect place for blogs like this. Using BestCamera and the PicPosterous iPhone apps, photos are processed and published in just seconds. No "real" camera can compete with that. Haven't had so much fun with any other camera in a long, long time.

Jarle

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

Yeah. I recall that feeling from when we first stuck that 'communicam' onto the bottom of our T68.

later!

Stan

[NikonWeb]

Hi Stan,

Question for you, knowing you've been developing mobile phones yourself: How come Apple are allowed to produce such a vastly superior product as the iPhone? I've had a bunch of Nokia and SonyEricsson phones (and a few other brands too), but none of them are even close to the iPhone. Not even close. The iPhone is faster, wi-fi is amazing (I've always had wi-fi connection issues with my other phones), mail, web surfing, 150.000 apps, everything - it just works right out of the box. I'm impressed.

I've never been an Apple fanboy - in fact I've never owned an Apple product before - but when I got the iPhone I was simply blown away. And I've been wondering: What are the other manufacturers thinking? Sure, they can't just copy the iPhone, but they should be able to learn something?

Any thoughts?

Jarle

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

The entire drive for phone development these days is cost. The short of it is, Apple didn't use cost as a criteria. They did, however, lock buyers into the iPhone only and AT&T only for two years with an equally high cost plan to hide the true cost of the thing.

Then, they did what Apple does best - hype up the marketplace with advertising. They sold a ton early on and so were able to cover the high cost of the early units with their scheme and then could figure out a way to cost-improve it, whilst performance improving it, *and* at the same time they continued to hype the thing up.

There were some unhappy folks out of that first lot to buy into the thing, but now it's not a bad deal at all.

My own radio performance testing of the original iPhone showed it to be mediocre. The stories out of AT&T regarding warranty costs from that fragile screen were like watching a horror film. And, we thought we had problems with our own smartphone screens breaking way too much. You really need one of those rubber super-covers on the iPhone from the moment you pull it out of the box, and then you stand a good chance of it surviving until obsolesence.

Anyway, our primary drive for anything we developed was cost, cost, cost. The features always came in second and the performance third. It wasn't just us, either. The whole industry is so driven.

In the face of the iPhone our leaders figured to dump Symbian and go Windows-based for the smartphones, but that seemingly didn't work. Now, they've jumped onto the Android bandwagon. The scheme was to put half of the Raleigh R&D shop out the door and convert the other half into the Windows-based smartphone R&D shop. That was in late 2008. Now, they've given up and they're turning off the lights here in another month. I guess that says that the Windows-based smartphone didn't work out, either. The California group is doing the Android stuff at this point.

I think they're probably right, too, even though I hate it that they're completely gone from around here. It looks to me like Android is going to be 'it' for a while and probably push past Apple given the number of competitors that are switching to it. I know if I were going to dump my ancient P910a for a new smartphone, I'd go with an Android-based unit. Android is an open system and Apple is closed, and that alone would do it for me.

And, so there you have it. Everyone else *is* doing something in response to the iPhone. The reality is that it takes two years or more to (a) get over the shock of something that comes out of left field, (b) figure out what in heck it was they did, (c) figure out something else to do that isn't just copying, and (d) develop whatever that is and get it into the marketplace.

Fortunately, I'm out of that crazy world. Maybe. I might get sucked back in with RIM (Blackberry) opening an R&D center here and looking to pick up all the ex-Ericsson/Sony Ericsson folks.....

later!

Stan

[NikonWeb]

Thanks Stan,

Very interesting. Will be interesting to follow the iPhone vs. Android vs. Windows Mobile battle.

Jarle

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

Yes, it's a fun thing to watch. Much more fun to watch that it was to participate in, anyway!

I just read in the news that Palm is in trouble and it looks like they're going to fire one more salvo in the iPad's direction. If the Palm take on the iPad flies, it'll save them. If it doesn't, then they go 'glub' as well.

That's the new battlefield, I think. I also think it's really in no man's land. It's too little to compete with a PC and too much for use as a smartphone. The entire concept may well be a dead-end. I recall when Ericsson made such a thing, back around 1995, and it went over like a lead balloon.....

Maybe we were too early, but then from what I saw, it just didn't fit well. We'll see. As I say, it's more fun to watch than it is to do

later!

Stan

[NikonWeb]

I think the iPad is going to do very well. In fact, I may get one myself (but maybe I'll wait for the next generation).

My first reaction was the same as yours: the iPad isn't good enough to compete with a laptop, and it's too big and cumbersome to compete with a smartphone. But now I'm not do sure. Personally, I now use the iPhone for many things that I used to do on the PC, like checking e-mail, casual web surfing and reading news (I love the NYTimes app). It works great, but for home use I'd love to have a bigger, always on unit. Like the iPad. Sure, it's not perfect - maybe a competitor like Microsoft's Courier or HP's Slate device will be better - but I think Apple is onto something. They usually are.

Here are some interesting comments from Stephen Fry (British actor, writer and film director):

"I know there will be many who have already taken one look and pronounced it to be nothing but a large iPhone and something of a disappointment. I have heard these voices before. In June 2007 when the iPhone was launched I collected a long list of “not impressed”, “meh”, “big deal”, “style over substance”, “it’s all hype”, “my HTC TyTN can do more”, “what a disappointment”, “majorly underwhelmed” and similar reactions."

http://www.stephenfry.com/2010/01/28/ipad-about/

Apparently, Mr. Fry is an Apple fanboy himself, so take it for what it's worth. But still..

Jarle

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

Well, if you have a use for any particular thing, then it's going to be, well, useful.

I have a friend who's still in IBM who's wanting some iPads for remote monitoring and control of servers. So, there's a good use for one. They're using iPhones for that now, so they have their Apple application already. The iPhone has too small a screen for their needs, and even a subnotebook is not portable enough. So, there's one use for the thing.

I like to have ready-to-go online terminals as well, but I use subnotebook PC's for that task. I settled out on the older IBM Thinkpad X31 series some time ago, which aren't very large at all, yet large enough and powerful enough to not be found wanting even though the design is several years old now. Even on the go, a cellular data portal (one of those things with WiFi on one end and cellular on the other) does the trick. For the ultraportable uses, I find that my P910 still works fine, even though that, too is getting to be pretty ancient. If I were going to upgrade from the 910, it's be to a smartphone that runs Android.

Anyway, I'm sure Apple will sell a lot of them, at least to begin with. I just question the longevity of something that size. My own experiences with both IBM and Ericsson trying to make something that fits that in-between size is that not enough people find good uses for the things, and in the long run they fail in the marketplace. Perhaps this time, someone has hit the right combination of performance to fill a need in the marketplace. And, that's the key to anything successful.

Later!

Stan