Yet Another iPhone Commentary
So last night, I met a nice guy (whose name shall remain anonymous) who was a staunch iPhone fanatic. He works in the technology field just like me. And we had a HUGE debate about my Nokia N95 versus his Apple iPhone, after a mutual friend explained that I was that iPhone hater who wrote that blog. Apparently, he had read my previous post reviewing the iPhone.
He started off with telling me how flawed my reviews were. As he picked one by one each of my points I had mentioned, the underlying theme of the debate had turned into technology. My argument was that 3G technology has been around for so many years, why would a bleeding technology company such as Apple not incorporate 3G? His response was that by including 3G, the iPhone will have to be thicker and the battery life will be shorter.
My response was that the inclusion of 3G in the iPhone wouldn't have made a significantly thicker iPhone than it is today. Furthermore, battery life should not be a factor, because everybody knows 3G inherently burns more energy. If you take the same car and drive down the same highway, but in one instance you drive it at 65 miles per hour in just the third gear, and in another instance you drive it at the same speed but in fifth gear, it becomes a no brainer that you wouldn't go nearly as far on the same tank of gas if you limit yourself to just the third gear. But you would have unbelievably high torque to work with.
Another reason why battery life wouldn't matter is because if Nokia's Symbian software could include the ability for me to set the phone to use just GSM, 3G, or combination of both depending on priority, why couldn't Apple have done the same thing? Steve Jobs' claim that the inclusion of 3G in the iPhone will drastically drain the battery. But that's assuming that it is operating on 3G only. Is there a need to be tied to the 3G protocol when you're not using your phone, just sitting there waiting to receive a call? No. A smart computer company such as Apple could have easily added similar toggle, just like Samsung has with its Blackjack, or any other company that manufactures 3G capable phones.
A point that no one in the iPhone camp want to even address is the fact that, yes, 3G protocol can eat up your battery juice pretty fast, but in real life, does it? Think of it this way... We all know from dslreports.com that AT&T's 3G network is capable of downloading at 1 Mbps (megabits per second), almost as fast as high speed DSL Internet connection at home. Not to mention that I have routinely hit that transfer rate for the most part of my web browsing time. But the older EDGE technology network (which iPhone relies on for its Internet browsing) only has the transfer rate of 100 kbps, which amounts to about 10% of the 3G download speed.
So if I were to go to a data-heavy website like MySpace.com, I might have burned up more battery juice at the rate I download the page, but it would only take me about 5 seconds to complete the page download on my N95. Compare that to the iPhone, which may take about 15 to 20 seconds to complete the page download. Sure, the battery consumption rate is slower on the iPhone than my N95, but you spend almost 4 times longer burning up the battery. In the end, isn't that negligible? It's like burning gas at 20 miles per gallon (rate) if you drive a distance of 20 miles at a faster speed, versus burning gas at 35 miles per gallon (rate) over the same distance but at a crawling speed. In the end, you spend more time burning gas just to cover 20 miles, even though the rate of gas burn-off is slower while driving slowly than driving fast.
Why can't iPhone lovers not understand this mere fact? Expert unbiased reviews have not deducted points off of the Nokia N95 in any comparison tests to the Apple iPhone because 3G uses more battery, mostly because they know this fact. But go to a web site that practically puts Apple on the altar as its god will always use this 3G battery utilization as a "winning" argument, never mind the fact that it'll take the iPhone longer to download the same content.
During this debate about the inclusion of the 3G chip, I theorized that the true reason why Apple did not include the 3G chip is probably because they want the iPhone to be as profitable as possible. Currently, any cellular phone manufacturer who includes 3G capabilities pay a small fee to Qualcomm, because Qualcomm holds the patents on some, if not most, of the underlying 3G communication technologies. It's either that, or they pay Qualcomm to use Qualcomm's chips in the cell phone. Either way, it eats into the profitability of a cellular phone. But my friend wouldn't hear of this.
Now, I suspect this is the case, because Apple only decided to bring a 3G-capable iPhone to the market "sometime in 2008" well after Nokia's legal battle with Qualcomm has commenced. Qualcomm feels like they deserve to be paid licensing fees for the use of their 3G technology, whereas Nokia's argument is that such a universally broad application should become public domain. Of course, the legal battle between these two companies is far from over, but I strongly suspect, as do Steve Jobs, that Nokia will prevail in the end. Once Qualcomm's claim to key 3G technology becomes public domain, Apple can include any 3G chipset they want for a lower cost than now. Of course, once the legal battle ends favorably for Nokia, well, the price of existing 3G phones will drop like flies from the sky, and future models will start selling for cheaper. My whole point here is that I don't think it is mere coincidence that Steve Jobs would hint at a 3G version of the iPhone when the legal battle between Nokia and Qualcomm got heated up in the last two months.
On a final note regarding 3G, Steve Jobs have also said that he is waiting for a company to provide a 3G chipset that could use lower power. There are some in the industry who believe that Broadcom's new BCM21551 chipset might be the answer to Steve Jobs' prayers, but let's not forget that companies like Broadcom do not sell their products exclusively to a single original equipment manufacturer. In fact, when Broadcom announced its revolutionary chipset, they have also indicated that they have sent samples of the chip to several companies. So by the time the iPhone includes 3G with lower battery consumption than it is today, let's not forget that companies like Nokia will probably be using the same thing from Broadcom or similar from another chipset manufacturer that will even out the playing field. All of a sudden, the same Nokia N95 manufactured after the adoption of the new chip becomes less power hungry! (Just like the same Xbox 360 built after October 18, 2007 suddenly became less power hungry, because Microsoft began using the Falcon motherboard. Same product, but a vast improvement due to the availability of better raw materials.)
Now, another sore point of discussion I had with this friend was regarding the browser. I don't understand why Apple fans seem to claim that the Safari browser is entirely Apple's brainchild. Only Apple fanatics who are also true technology enthusiasts will realize that the Safari web browser is based on the open source development of WebKit. I told him that for almost three years now, the Symbian S60 operating system (which Nokia has implemented on the Nokia N95, as well as the majority of the N series) has always included web browsers based on the very same open source WebKit. In fact, Nokia's decision to ditch their own home-brewed browser for the open source WebKit was announced on November 2, 2005!
What I could not get across to my friend was the fact that Nokia for a while has been able to browse the full Internet long before Apple's claims in their iPhone advertisements that the iPhone is the first to be able to browse the real Internet Internet. His defense? He doesn't watch TV, so he isn't aware of the specific television advertisement I was referring to. Never mind the fact that all of Apple's iPhone advertisements are available for viewing on Apple's website.
What bothers me the most is that most people share the same misconception as my friend, that the Safari browser is purely Apple's own technology. And even on Apple-centric websites, they have written in articles in such a way that they call the open source WebKit the "Safari WebKit," as if WebKit was a product of Apple! How would you feel if you put Shell gasoline in the Honda, and begin calling the same gasoline the Honda gasoline? And then further perpetuate the misleading fact by talking about other products, like a Land Rover, that it copied Honda by using the Honda gasoline? Seriously! WebKit is not Apple's product, much like the gasoline is not Honda's product!!!
Of course, my friend thought the Safari browser was based on the KDS, which I thought was kind of weird in the fact that KDS is a shell environment for Unix. I countered the fact that it was based on the same engine as Mozilla, which of course he disputed. In reality, the Mozilla browser is not based on the open source WebKit. I thought it was because a few months ago, Mozilla has publicly opined that they might ditch the Gecko engine and base Mozilla 2.0 on WebKit. I thought the decision had been made, but a quick research revealed not to be the case. So I was wrong in stating that the Safari browser uses the same technology as Mozilla-based browsers.
In any case, his whole closing argument was that all my points of review on the iPhone was all flawed, basing purely on the fact that consumers are willing to get the iPhone because they are well aware of the limitations iPhone has. To this point, I strongly disagree that any of my arguments are flawed, because if a consumer never has owned a real smartphone like some of Nokia's offering and then make the jump to the iPhone, it is by far a huge step forward including the limitations. But for early technology adopters like myself, for whom the N95 is his fifth real smartphone in as little as four years, it is certainly a hard pill to swallow and accept the iPhone when you know that all the features you've relied on just don't exist in the iPhone. Can you imagine having lived with a mouse on a computer for several years, but then Apple makes a sleek new computer but left out the mouse, leaving you with just the keyboard? Once you're accustomed to certain new technology features, especially for years, and especially when such features are already common standards from most manufacturers, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever for Apple to exclude those features in the iPhone.
That is why I maintain that the iPhone was a rushed project. Apple should have waited longer before launching the iPhone. I suspect that they couldn't wait a day longer because the Nokia N95 was already a one year old smartphone. I also suspect that Apple knew that Nokia has been developing a touch interface for years now that they thought if Apple rushes through the iPhone development and become the first to put a touch interface product in the market, then it doesn't matter who came up with the idea first. And in business sense, that is absolutely true. But it all still boils down to the fact that the iPhone, other than its touch interface, is still a far inferior product than any of the "new" generation of smartphones from Nokia that has been around for a couple years.
Who knows? Maybe Steve Jobs will finally realize his mistakes (making his target sales goal and fattening up the company's bottom line with an inferior product hardly counts as a mistake, right?) and fix everything that is wrong with the current iPhone come 2008. But I'll wait till that day comes before I pass judgment. If it passes my standards and expectations of what a converging smartphone should be, then don't be surprised that I might simply ditch my Nokia N95 for the Apple iPhone 2.0.
Stay tuned for a future review of the second generation iPhone. =)
He started off with telling me how flawed my reviews were. As he picked one by one each of my points I had mentioned, the underlying theme of the debate had turned into technology. My argument was that 3G technology has been around for so many years, why would a bleeding technology company such as Apple not incorporate 3G? His response was that by including 3G, the iPhone will have to be thicker and the battery life will be shorter.
My response was that the inclusion of 3G in the iPhone wouldn't have made a significantly thicker iPhone than it is today. Furthermore, battery life should not be a factor, because everybody knows 3G inherently burns more energy. If you take the same car and drive down the same highway, but in one instance you drive it at 65 miles per hour in just the third gear, and in another instance you drive it at the same speed but in fifth gear, it becomes a no brainer that you wouldn't go nearly as far on the same tank of gas if you limit yourself to just the third gear. But you would have unbelievably high torque to work with.
Another reason why battery life wouldn't matter is because if Nokia's Symbian software could include the ability for me to set the phone to use just GSM, 3G, or combination of both depending on priority, why couldn't Apple have done the same thing? Steve Jobs' claim that the inclusion of 3G in the iPhone will drastically drain the battery. But that's assuming that it is operating on 3G only. Is there a need to be tied to the 3G protocol when you're not using your phone, just sitting there waiting to receive a call? No. A smart computer company such as Apple could have easily added similar toggle, just like Samsung has with its Blackjack, or any other company that manufactures 3G capable phones.
A point that no one in the iPhone camp want to even address is the fact that, yes, 3G protocol can eat up your battery juice pretty fast, but in real life, does it? Think of it this way... We all know from dslreports.com that AT&T's 3G network is capable of downloading at 1 Mbps (megabits per second), almost as fast as high speed DSL Internet connection at home. Not to mention that I have routinely hit that transfer rate for the most part of my web browsing time. But the older EDGE technology network (which iPhone relies on for its Internet browsing) only has the transfer rate of 100 kbps, which amounts to about 10% of the 3G download speed.
So if I were to go to a data-heavy website like MySpace.com, I might have burned up more battery juice at the rate I download the page, but it would only take me about 5 seconds to complete the page download on my N95. Compare that to the iPhone, which may take about 15 to 20 seconds to complete the page download. Sure, the battery consumption rate is slower on the iPhone than my N95, but you spend almost 4 times longer burning up the battery. In the end, isn't that negligible? It's like burning gas at 20 miles per gallon (rate) if you drive a distance of 20 miles at a faster speed, versus burning gas at 35 miles per gallon (rate) over the same distance but at a crawling speed. In the end, you spend more time burning gas just to cover 20 miles, even though the rate of gas burn-off is slower while driving slowly than driving fast.
Why can't iPhone lovers not understand this mere fact? Expert unbiased reviews have not deducted points off of the Nokia N95 in any comparison tests to the Apple iPhone because 3G uses more battery, mostly because they know this fact. But go to a web site that practically puts Apple on the altar as its god will always use this 3G battery utilization as a "winning" argument, never mind the fact that it'll take the iPhone longer to download the same content.
During this debate about the inclusion of the 3G chip, I theorized that the true reason why Apple did not include the 3G chip is probably because they want the iPhone to be as profitable as possible. Currently, any cellular phone manufacturer who includes 3G capabilities pay a small fee to Qualcomm, because Qualcomm holds the patents on some, if not most, of the underlying 3G communication technologies. It's either that, or they pay Qualcomm to use Qualcomm's chips in the cell phone. Either way, it eats into the profitability of a cellular phone. But my friend wouldn't hear of this.
Now, I suspect this is the case, because Apple only decided to bring a 3G-capable iPhone to the market "sometime in 2008" well after Nokia's legal battle with Qualcomm has commenced. Qualcomm feels like they deserve to be paid licensing fees for the use of their 3G technology, whereas Nokia's argument is that such a universally broad application should become public domain. Of course, the legal battle between these two companies is far from over, but I strongly suspect, as do Steve Jobs, that Nokia will prevail in the end. Once Qualcomm's claim to key 3G technology becomes public domain, Apple can include any 3G chipset they want for a lower cost than now. Of course, once the legal battle ends favorably for Nokia, well, the price of existing 3G phones will drop like flies from the sky, and future models will start selling for cheaper. My whole point here is that I don't think it is mere coincidence that Steve Jobs would hint at a 3G version of the iPhone when the legal battle between Nokia and Qualcomm got heated up in the last two months.
On a final note regarding 3G, Steve Jobs have also said that he is waiting for a company to provide a 3G chipset that could use lower power. There are some in the industry who believe that Broadcom's new BCM21551 chipset might be the answer to Steve Jobs' prayers, but let's not forget that companies like Broadcom do not sell their products exclusively to a single original equipment manufacturer. In fact, when Broadcom announced its revolutionary chipset, they have also indicated that they have sent samples of the chip to several companies. So by the time the iPhone includes 3G with lower battery consumption than it is today, let's not forget that companies like Nokia will probably be using the same thing from Broadcom or similar from another chipset manufacturer that will even out the playing field. All of a sudden, the same Nokia N95 manufactured after the adoption of the new chip becomes less power hungry! (Just like the same Xbox 360 built after October 18, 2007 suddenly became less power hungry, because Microsoft began using the Falcon motherboard. Same product, but a vast improvement due to the availability of better raw materials.)
Now, another sore point of discussion I had with this friend was regarding the browser. I don't understand why Apple fans seem to claim that the Safari browser is entirely Apple's brainchild. Only Apple fanatics who are also true technology enthusiasts will realize that the Safari web browser is based on the open source development of WebKit. I told him that for almost three years now, the Symbian S60 operating system (which Nokia has implemented on the Nokia N95, as well as the majority of the N series) has always included web browsers based on the very same open source WebKit. In fact, Nokia's decision to ditch their own home-brewed browser for the open source WebKit was announced on November 2, 2005!
What I could not get across to my friend was the fact that Nokia for a while has been able to browse the full Internet long before Apple's claims in their iPhone advertisements that the iPhone is the first to be able to browse the real Internet Internet. His defense? He doesn't watch TV, so he isn't aware of the specific television advertisement I was referring to. Never mind the fact that all of Apple's iPhone advertisements are available for viewing on Apple's website.
What bothers me the most is that most people share the same misconception as my friend, that the Safari browser is purely Apple's own technology. And even on Apple-centric websites, they have written in articles in such a way that they call the open source WebKit the "Safari WebKit," as if WebKit was a product of Apple! How would you feel if you put Shell gasoline in the Honda, and begin calling the same gasoline the Honda gasoline? And then further perpetuate the misleading fact by talking about other products, like a Land Rover, that it copied Honda by using the Honda gasoline? Seriously! WebKit is not Apple's product, much like the gasoline is not Honda's product!!!
Of course, my friend thought the Safari browser was based on the KDS, which I thought was kind of weird in the fact that KDS is a shell environment for Unix. I countered the fact that it was based on the same engine as Mozilla, which of course he disputed. In reality, the Mozilla browser is not based on the open source WebKit. I thought it was because a few months ago, Mozilla has publicly opined that they might ditch the Gecko engine and base Mozilla 2.0 on WebKit. I thought the decision had been made, but a quick research revealed not to be the case. So I was wrong in stating that the Safari browser uses the same technology as Mozilla-based browsers.
In any case, his whole closing argument was that all my points of review on the iPhone was all flawed, basing purely on the fact that consumers are willing to get the iPhone because they are well aware of the limitations iPhone has. To this point, I strongly disagree that any of my arguments are flawed, because if a consumer never has owned a real smartphone like some of Nokia's offering and then make the jump to the iPhone, it is by far a huge step forward including the limitations. But for early technology adopters like myself, for whom the N95 is his fifth real smartphone in as little as four years, it is certainly a hard pill to swallow and accept the iPhone when you know that all the features you've relied on just don't exist in the iPhone. Can you imagine having lived with a mouse on a computer for several years, but then Apple makes a sleek new computer but left out the mouse, leaving you with just the keyboard? Once you're accustomed to certain new technology features, especially for years, and especially when such features are already common standards from most manufacturers, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever for Apple to exclude those features in the iPhone.
That is why I maintain that the iPhone was a rushed project. Apple should have waited longer before launching the iPhone. I suspect that they couldn't wait a day longer because the Nokia N95 was already a one year old smartphone. I also suspect that Apple knew that Nokia has been developing a touch interface for years now that they thought if Apple rushes through the iPhone development and become the first to put a touch interface product in the market, then it doesn't matter who came up with the idea first. And in business sense, that is absolutely true. But it all still boils down to the fact that the iPhone, other than its touch interface, is still a far inferior product than any of the "new" generation of smartphones from Nokia that has been around for a couple years.
Who knows? Maybe Steve Jobs will finally realize his mistakes (making his target sales goal and fattening up the company's bottom line with an inferior product hardly counts as a mistake, right?) and fix everything that is wrong with the current iPhone come 2008. But I'll wait till that day comes before I pass judgment. If it passes my standards and expectations of what a converging smartphone should be, then don't be surprised that I might simply ditch my Nokia N95 for the Apple iPhone 2.0.
Stay tuned for a future review of the second generation iPhone. =)
Labels: iPhone, N95, technology
posted by StHalcyon at
14:43
0 Comments
