Apple's Smart Phone Depends on OS X Tie-Ins

anaesthetica writes "According to AppleInsider, Apple is not only working on a cellphone + mp3 player iPhone, but is working on a second model designed to be a smart phone, highly integrated with Mac OS and .Mac. The smart phone has gone through several iterations, as the notoriously demanding Mr. Jobs ordered the elite team working on the phone to redesign and re-engineer their prototypes. Capabilities are reported to include Front Row interface, syncing contacts and iCal with .Mac, "call ahead", iChat video conferencing integration, WiFi, and a slide-out keyboard. Too good to be true?"

Re:Forced integration is a real turn-off

[turbofisk]

You aren't forced to use iTunes with atleast Windows. I use Winamp... It rocks your socks of!

Re:Here is what I think would sell like hot cakes.

[spectral]

Stop using verizon. My phone uses bluetooth (no cable involved) and windows treats it like a file system (IBM/Lenovo laptop) that I can browse and move stuff to/from the phone whenever I want. Mac OS X uses the bluetooth file transfer utility, and I think you have to do that if you're using a non-IBM/lenovo laptop as well (or an IBM/Lenovo laptop without their bluetooth stack). I use Cingular. Most GSM phones are the same. Verizon is the only one to cripple their bluetooth so badly, that I know of.

Re:Here is what I think would sell like hot cakes.

[pauljlucas]

Unfortunately, at least in the US, the wireless providers have a stranglehold on phone manufacturers. If the providers don't like your phone because it cuts into their profits, they will neither offer it for sale nor allow it to be activated on their network. AFAIK, only GSM customers have choice due to SIM cards, but the top two providers in the US use CDMA technology (which doesn't use SIM cards or any equivalent).

Re:Nokia 9300

[mpapet]

A phone I can plug a usb cable into and drop pictures/sounds/contract directly from my computer.

I'm pretty sure my nokia 9300 does that. It has a very handy mmc slot too so I back up the system state and transfer it for safe keeping. I don't know if the nokia software is an "easy" interface, but it's okay. Runs the symbian OS and some j2me apps work well.

You can make your own ringtones too. Just transfer them as an mp3 onto the phone and you are good to go.

My understanding is this phone isn't very popular in the States. It's the best phone I've ever had and pretty hackable compared to some other phones.

Re:Microsoft will never allow...?

[Animaether]

Whoops.. meant to just include the google query, not the first result. Oh well:
http://www.google.com/search?q=pocketpc+mac [google.com]

The Missing Sync I have heard mentioned on forums like xda-developers numerous times.

Re:What you need is a new provider

[e4g4]

I do believe you can do GPS syncing over bluetooth, IIRC there are a number of products out there that come with Palm software. As to pairing multiple devices simultaneously, I've honestly never tried - generally when I'm using the laptop, that's my mode of communication, and when I don't have my laptop I use my treo, and I've yet to find a bluetooth headset in my price range that I actually want. However, given Palm OS's less than great support for multitasking, it may not work flawlessly if it does at all.

Funny note about the DUN reactivation - apparently the way Verizon locked it out was by disabling the display of the DUN on/off toggle. Hilarious. So, reactivating it involves installing a Bluetooth.prc with that control enabled (see here [shadowmite.com] for more details).

Did I mention I also got my phone to boot linux? :-P

Re:No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

[minus_273]

you can sync your ipod with outlook.

Re:and next the tablet

[johnpaul191]

there was a table communicator prototype of the Apple Newton. one prototype that was never built but has been photographed and is somewhat documented. it's in the book of Apple design over the years.

as for .Mac integration.... *most* OS X features that require .Mac have been worked around in the past. i can't imagine it would be a dealbreaker kind of thing with the phone. when you consider the number of Mac users, and then take the subset that have .Mac, then take the subset that would buy an iPhone (for whatever reason)...... i can't imagine it's a huge target audience? i don't know how many cellphones are generally sold of a specific model, but it seems like a bad business plan. it may have some easy way to integrate with existing/new .Mac features... but that would be a small modification to some sort of web browsing abilities. maybe .Mac users can customize a cell phone 'startpage' kind of thing or something. it's a bear to check my personal favorite movie theaters on my phone.

An ineffective monopoly on a pointless product.

[argent]

It got that monopoly by virtue of the fact that they control the DRM formats that can be played by their music play, which has an overwhelming share of the market.

What monopoly? This isn't like Windows, where you need to run Windows to run Windows applications. Every song I've bought from the iTunes music store is stored in DRM-free audio CDs (as Apple recommends!) and can be played on any music player in the world.

I'm not locked into iTunes, or the iPod. I don't even *like* the iPod. I gave my iPod to my daughter and I'm using iTunes because it just works better than the other music players I've used, and because Fairplay is "honor system" DRM... Apple doesn't try and stop me from feeding the output of iTunes into a recording program, or Garage Band, or anything else. I buy from the iTunes Music store because it just works. I also buy from eMusic.

I've had an MP3 playing phone, and after using it a while I decided that I've never had a sillier device. Take the two devices that I own that are hungriest for power, and run them off the same battery? I have enough trouble as it is with my phone being dead when I need it!

You really want an MP3 playing phone? Make me an offer on mine. But you don't get to return it when you discover what a bad idea it is.

Re:Abuse of monopoly?

[anothy]

you fundamentally misunderstand "monopoly". don't feel bad, it's a common mistake (especially 'round these parts).

it's useless to say that apple has a monopoly on iTunes Music Store sales, the same way it's stupid to say that Ford has a monopoly on Taurus sales. Ford doesn't have a monopoly on cars, which is the industry in which they compete; similarly, apple doesn't have a monopoly on digital music sales, which is the field in which iTMS competes. true, Apple has market dominance in a way that Ford does not, but market dominance does not equal a monopoly, by a long shot.

apple has no ability to lock anyone into anything related to phones. for starters, they've already licensed the ability to play iTMS tracks on someone else's phone. and, of course, there's still the fact that iTMS does not represent any form of monopoly. there's nothing wrong with them offering Mac-only (or .Mac-only) features unless their abusing a monopoly position by doing so (or is Apple somehow "wrong" for not making Safari, iChat, GarageBand, or Spotlight available for Windows?). Given no monopoly, there can be no such abuse.

i'd agree that it's bad that it's illegal to try to work around the Fairplay DRM breakage, but that's entirely irrelevant to the rest of your post.

Re:If it's tightly coupled with Mac OS, it will fl

[Jerry Rivers]

"If it's tightly coupled with Mac OS, it will flop"

The iPod started on the Mac only. It was a (modest) success before the Windows version was ever introduced.

Re:Microsoft will never allow...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be so quick with the putdown. I support blackberries on a mostly Mac network myself, and I can safely say that PocketMac sucks baboon balls with regard to giving me the equivalent functionality of syncing blackberries to a PC. Haven't tried it with a Pocket PC, so my rebuff only goes so far, but if it works at all like their blackberry software..... it'll do.... barely.