A report from wireless industry analyst firm ABI Research released today proclaims that the new Apple iPhone does not fall within the firm’s standard definition of a smartphone, due to restrictions Apple has placed on the phone against the inclusion of [native] third-party applications.
Report: Apple iPhone Not a Smartphone
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Let’s see the F/OSS AND Apple Zealots defend the undefensible.
Never heard of ABI Research before today, but I had heard of Apple – lol
I guess the real question is, does it fall under your defn. of a smartphone, or better yet, does it fall inside of what you expect from a phone these days.
If no, then don’t buy it.
If yes, then check out all your options of all phones that fit within your expectations and buy the best one for you…
I guess this goes for everything…
IMO, ABI Research has it right: Smartphone is a phone that can run third party *native* applications (not just J2ME). I have blogged about this here:
http://eugenia.blogsome.com/2006/12/07/windows-mobile-in-the-next-f… (the last paragraphs)
and here:
http://eugenia.blogsome.com/2007/01/11/the-iphone-will-have-apple-c…
n/m
Edited 2007-01-27 03:06
There exists no formal definition of the term “smartphone” other than being very feature-rich and advanced phones. Excluding phones that only allows 3rd-party Java apps is a bit restricted in my opinion. What about a Java-centric phone system like SavaJe OS or perhaps a completely Java-based phone (is feasibel)? Would they not be smartphone based on their Java nature?
Well, there is the widespread concept that a smartphone is a phone where you may install full-featured, native applications while a featurephone may allow you to download only simple java applets running in a sealed box with extremely limited access to the phone features.
A Java-centric phone that allowed full Swing apps with access to the filing system, networking, GUI etc. would indeed be a smartphone, according to this.
Apple’s iPhone is just one more of Apple’s latest examples of herding the user down the exact path Apple has chosen, while so cynically convincing him that that makes him a freethinker.
I cringe to think what they will do if they ever become as large as Microsoft.
IF j2me implementations were uniform and supported all jsr’s (pim, bluetooth, wma etc) and streaming with mmapi then we could say it’s a platform and the phones with j2me would be smartphones.
Right now j2me is crippled and fragmented. Not useless, but severely limited.
And what exactly would “F/OSS…Zealots” want to defend about the Apple Phone?
Agreed. It’s hard to see how such a closed, proprietary product would be defended by the F/OSS community. If anything, I’d expect the exact opposite give how closed, patented and locked away it is.
I mean, come on.. this is Apple we’re talking about. They’re on the same level if not worse than Microsoft when it comes to protecting and controlling their intellectual property.
worse..
..and there goes my karma…
Edited 2007-01-27 13:27
why would F/OSS people have anything to do with defending apple crap?
to me its just a name. nothing more, nothing less.
Normally phones run two CPUs. One controls the radio and the other runs the crapplications that most phones ship with. That allows you to prevent even ill-behaved java apps from bringing down the network. It’s a shame Apple isn’t opening up the phone to 3rd party apps. It makes me wonder if their ability to isolate applications from the radio hardware is sufficiently robust. Or maybe, because of some of the neat features like random access voicemail, they weren’t able to strongly isolate the radio.
It’s a shame especially because that touch control might make for some great phone games. Regardless of what it’s called, I’ll probably get one.
Edited 2007-01-27 02:56
Not really, both WinMo and Symbian can run on single core configurations. I am pretty certain that most of the latest Nokia S60 phones (v3+) are all single core.
It’s been a while since I developed for phones, but according to the info I used to get from RIM and Nokia, the second CPU is not accessible to you. It’s a dedicated, single CPU that manages the radio and that’s it. It’s not really a single/dual core issue. It’s as if the radio is own embedded device within the phone.
Security is not normally the reason for a dual-processor approach to smartphone design rather that the real-time requirements of the baseband and protocol stack. Until recently neither Symbian nor Windows Mobile (or what they call it this week) have had sufficient real-time capabilities in order to meet these requirements thus the reason for adding a extra “application” processor. It is correct that Symbian with the introduction of their second generation kernel (EK2) provided the groundwork for a single processor solution, however I’m not aware if any of the phones currently on the market are single processor.
I got that from a talk by the Nokia stooge (err. spokesman) at a wireless conference I went to a couple of years back. I guess post 9/11 the talking point was security, but he meant – develop away – you can’t hurt the phone or the network. Then, I went to a security talk where (he he he) they covered just that topic.
It’s a damn phone with some features on it you may or may not use.
Do yourselves a favor and have a social life that doesn’t include that phone umbilical cord people refer to as a phone life.
No joke.
I have a ‘smart phone’ (treo 600) and I RARELY use it as a *phone*. I use maybe 2 hours a month on it, and thats mostly talking to my sister thats 1900 miles away.
I know people that are literally always on the phone. it’s sad.
Agreed; I see people spent hundreds, sometimes upwards of thousands on a phone with all the bells, whistles and features – and they don’t use a single damn one of them!
For me, I have an el-cheapo $180 phone from Telecom (CDMA) – I text message, rarely use the phone and don’t touch the internet facilities because they cost a fortune – my monthly cost (I’m on prepaid), barely $10.
I agree with the original poster, some people really need to get a life – and as a side note; what the hell is wrong with lugging around a mobile phone and mp3 player? I mean, goodness gracious; I carry a ‘man bag’ everywhere, so the idea of a couple of devices taking up space equal to two deck of cards is hardly sending me into fits of stress about the ‘bulkiness’.
Dear god, you swear that the extra 0.0005 of an inch, and the extra 0.0006 pounds will *really* make a difference.
“[W]hat the hell is wrong with lugging around a mobile phone and mp3 player?”
Agreed. While I don’t have a dedicated MP3 player per se, I do have an LG VX8100 cellphone and a Dell Axim X51v PDA that I lug around, and both have MP3 playback capability. From what I’ve seen, the cellphone/PDA combo devices give up too much screen to the cellphone form factor, but they’re still bigger than my cellphone.
I confess that iPods are way cool, and this new iPhone looks way cool, and I love gadgets in general, but, since I rarely use the music playback capability of either my cellphone or PDA, I know I’d rarely use an iPod or the music/video playback functionality of an iPhone.
I use Nokia 6681 with 1GB card as handy AND an audio player (Symbian OggPlay
because I like to have one device instead of two, but thats just me.
My wife however has the simplest mobile, and separate mp3 player, because she prefers it that way…
But I won’t call iphone cool, to me it looks ugly, larger than phone, smaller than pda,
…opinions differ
“I mean, goodness gracious; I carry a ‘man bag’ everywhere, so the idea of a couple of devices taking up space equal to two deck of cards is hardly sending me into fits of stress about the ‘bulkiness’. “
Well, I don’t carry a bag
Actually I would not use the mp3 functions, but I do use a Treo. I was carrying both a cell phone and a PDA for work purposes. One time work gave me a pager to carry which made 3 devices. I started to look like Batman with the bat belt and all the gadgets. The Treo eliminated that bringing it down to one device. There is nothing wrong with multiple devices, if you have a way to carry them. For me carrying a bag would get in the way.
Edit: Corrected typo
Edited 2007-01-27 15:57
Cell phones aren’t all bad… it’s just most of the people who use them. But I know I’d certainly miss my Treo for work purposes if I ever lost it. I think the key is to use the things within reason/sensibly. I’d certainly never leave the ringer on in public, or whip it out to have a conversation in the middle of the grocery store.
Speaking of ringers, I really wish someone would pass a law requiring all cell phone manufacturers to include, in all new phones, the functionality to receive a short-range wireless signal that will forcibly turn off the ringer/turn on vibrate mode. And then provide the transmitters to anyone who wants one – hell, make a portable battery-powered version that can be used to generate a personal ADF (Ass-hat Distortion Field).
What is smart about a phone anyway? I find it hard to believe that the openness of native APIs is a factor in this distinction. To me, “smart” indicates the ability to adapt to one’s environment. In the context of a programmable device, the notion of adaptation is hard to define.
The iPhone automatically switches from EDGE to a wifi network when the latter is in range. Is that adaptation, or is that simply an event-driven finite state machine? If smart devices are held to a standard of defining a relatively unlimited set of states as new environments are encountered at runtime, then it might be a decade or two until we really have “smart” phones. If adaptation simply means changing states in response to an external event (i.e. not user-initiated), then phones have been smart for quite some time.
What is smart about a phone anyway? I find it hard to believe that the openness of native APIs is a factor in this distinction. To me, “smart” indicates the ability to adapt to one’s environment. In the context of a programmable device, the notion of adaptation is hard to define.
I see where you’re coming from, but “Smart” phones are extensible, they can take third-party applications to extend their functionality, or you (or more often, your employer) has the ability to extend applications to your device. Apple is bundling in a lot of functionality (as many other vendors do), but at the end of the day, by locking it down, they’re making it an appliance and not a platform.
Users with Symbian, or Palm, or Windows, or even Linux, have access to a wide range of third-party applications. Numbering in the thousands. They range from being utterly pointless to ridiculously useful, but they exist.
It’s probably more of a distinction for corporate customers, the average consumer won’t care. The iPhone will likely be extensible with no doubt very-cool add-on applications that are chargeable via Apple & the provider (Jobs’ comment about Cingular not wanting their network to go down because of third-party apps is a popular deflection by vendors, but it is also absolute BS, and is often used as an excuse to justify regulating functionality in order to earn incremental revenue), which is probably better than nothing, but users with smart phones or, at least, J2MEE, simply have more potential, if not more options.
So it’s a fine line since most people won’t care, but the iPhone isn’t a smart phone, it’s just a very well tricked-out cell phone.
Jobs’ comment about Cingular not wanting their network to go down because of third-party apps is a popular deflection by vendors, but it is also absolute BS
Yup. I think the real reasoning is that Cingular is afraid of losing revenue to VoIP and IM clients.
…Jobs’ comment about Cingular not wanting their network to go down because of third-party apps is a popular deflection by vendors, but it is also absolute BS, and is often used as an excuse to justify regulating functionality in order to earn incremental revenue…
Maybe there’s a shred of truth to Jobs’ statement. Locking the native interfaces should make life a little harder for malware authors, but on *nix-like systems it’s really simple to create a basic time-triggered DDoS payload using nothing more than a user-level shell script. Restricted third-party Java apps will be able to drop this kind of payload. Even savvy *nix sysadmins might not think to check if their iPhone is running a nefarious shell script from a hidden home subdirectory, especially if the script is called bash or ps.
In general, the more locks and bars you put up, the more it strengthens our resolve to do our worst. People will craft third-party malware for the iPhone regardless of how locked-down the API might be. And they may very well be able to take out Cingular’s network.
take away all the guns and only criminals will have guns.
I think removing 3rd party apps is more about Apple control over its image than any concern about hackers. After all, cingular also has phones with windows mobile and they allow 3rd party apps.
> take away all the guns and only criminals will have guns.
Whoa, that’s disgusting! Take away guns, and exert control, and almost nobody will have guns. Stuff your riffle association attitude, and look at how in Europe there are almost no crimes with guns — and no accidents, either.
stop beating this dead horse. Lets talk about it again in June.
its the latest iPod with phone capabilities…. and i’m getting one
Edited 2007-01-27 04:52
call it the “Slightly-smarter-than-your-average-phone-yet-dummer-than-a-real-smar tphone”
The SSTYAPYDTARS, has a nice ring to it don’t you think?
Seriously, it’s a personal thing, for ME, I think the phone is fantastic on paper, and looks great, but honestly we’ll have to wait until June before we can really start making judgment calls on it.
Edited 2007-01-27 05:38
The only reason one would by this phone would be to have his iPod and mobile phone in one device. I see absolutely no other reason to give 500 to 600 dollars (if it is even that cheap) for a crippled device.
Most smart phone users buy smart phones because of the extra functionality they can put in them. In fact a large number of smart phone users are IT professionals as I am. Why would I buy the iPhone when it doesn’t give me the ability to connect it with my office applications? If I were to buy an mp3 player with a phone I would look to Sony Ericson which already has some nice cheap devices out there.
Sure it is a pretty device, and sure it has a nice interface, but at the end of the day functionality is all that matters.
Edited 2007-01-27 08:30
the key word is that it is the firms idea of smart phone to have 3rd party apps. smart phone for me and a lot ppl means pda functions such as calenda email etc.
i have a dell x51v and a p910i, to tell you the truth i am still using the org apps without installing 3rd party apps, but thats me.
I do agree llhowever that it is a pretty dull move by apple to not open the phone to 3rd parties.
Browser: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Symbian OS; SonyEricsson P910; 323) Opera 6.32 [en]
Apple would be the first to say that iPhone is not a smartphone.
Obviously, it’s the first of a new class: the geniusphone!
Jobs is maybe the better man for PR and the big money, but without Jobs Apple would stand for quality again. But quality doesn’t bring the quantity for a company. And in the end the have to earn money. But why bother? We do have superior operating systems like BSD/Linux.
WOZ would be the man, you don’t need some dreams of a guru, but you do need a real engineer with a dream … WOZ
without Jobs Apple would stand for quality again
Are you joking? Apple in the non-Jobs years had WAY worse quality than it does now. Either you are living in an alternate reality, or you have never used a Performa. Whereas I think Apple *currently* without a doubt stands for high quality, and I think that’s one of their strongest points.
I really don’t understand what lack of quality you are talking about. Apple may have the occasional issues with their products, but on average they are far better engineered and more reliable than those of any other PC maker or maker of MP3 players. They also have the best industrial design and the most reliable OS on them to boot….
Who claimed it was a smartphone?
It is not a PDA either.
It is an IPHONE, man. Why should I care what it is NOT?
Can I browse the internet with a smartphone as with an iPhone?
Can I googlemaps with a smartphone OUT OF THE BOX?
Is the PSP a smartphone? A PC?
What’s in a name? And especially in “smartphone” which is not precisely “rose”….
Do you have some opinion too or just nonsense questions?
So… it doesn’t revolutionize the mobile phone. It just gives a cool face to an old tech. As I said, all those things the iPhone does, so does a simple Sony Ericson phone with an mp3 player. The only difference is that the Sony Ericson costs 3 times less… and can run 3rd party apps….
When did the definition of smartphone change?
I have an ageing Ericsson R380s (yes it still works), as far as I’m aware it’s the first phone that was called a smartphone – it was the first phone to include PDA facilities and still look like a phone.
It can’t run any 3rd party apps, or any other apps at all for that fact.
Then again this phone is 6 years old… Most “dumbphones” do more these days.
Edited 2007-01-27 13:25
If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, is there a sound?
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
Is the iPhone a smartphone?
If a tree falls on an iPhone in the forest, but the angels are too busy dancing to hear it, does Apple still turn a profit?
Guess we’ll just have to wait for the Messiah…
If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, is there a sound?
That depends on your definition of ‘no one’ as sound is the translation of disturbances of mechanical energy propagating through matter by a living entity. So if ‘no one’ refers to no people then there would be other organism’s around to sense the disturbance.
Well, I wasn’t expecting to debate this, but…
I’ve always considered the compression waves themselves to be “sound”.
I’m my way of thinking, if *all* life on Earth were destroyed by a virulent plague contracted from a dirty iPhone (just to keep this on topic ), and a volcano erupted after that, there would still be a sound.
I’ve never really gotten into that whole idea of “sound” being a purely mental phenomenon.
Edited 2007-01-27 15:43
I’d say that the compression waves by themselves are, well, compression waves, and there needs to be an observer to sense the waves for it to be called sound.
Either way it grounds the question, it’s no longer such a philosophical classic. We know that if the tree falls the compression wave will be there.
By having a definitive answer has to how sound is defined we have an answer to the question.
…I know I’m taking this way farther than it needs to go, but…
I’d say that the compression waves by themselves are, well, compression waves, and there needs to be an observer to sense the waves for it to be called sound.
Exactly. Except that without an observer to call these things “compression waves”, they can’t very well be called compression waves either, can they? But then again, the tree can’t very well “fall” in a “forest” without us being there to witness that, either. At least by the observer-requirement definition.
Which is why basically, the answer is YES, it does make a sound. Because as long as we are conceptualizing the tree and the forest, it makes no sense to exclude the conceptual sound from our conceptualization.
Apple will not have any problems selling these, regardless of the restrictions they have put on them. There is enough hype to carry it through.
it may be not be smart but it’s hot so you want it really bad and then it dumps you when it’s bored.
As someone who was on his 2 cell phones over 5000 minutes a month + a few hours a week on his desk phone at work.
Yes, a good UI for a phone makes a difference.
Yes, having me be able to carry a single device that works well as both devices it is combining makes a difference.
Yes, bluetooth and bluetooth headsets make a difference.
Yes, I enjoy being away from phones and am sad I finally buckled down and got mine unlocked for my project here in Ghana.
My work cell phone used to be a cheap Nokia with no bluetooth, no color screen, no camera, no games (I think it had snake), and it just worked. I had to use my razr’s (don’t buy this pos) bluetooth to sync contacts between my Nokia’s chip and my laptop, but otherwise it worked great, got great battery life, etc.
Oh, FYI, some of us who used their cell phone almost all day, every day, kept it on vibrate and walk around the corner to take calls.
The problem with doing something right is that no one notices.
I admit, I had to get a second cell phone so I could leave the “work” phone at home after 7ish.
Anyway, some IT related jobs are a lot about communication, thus being available a lot is important. I mostly had the clean up problems that arose from IT people and Manager types not being able to communicate in the first place.
I don’t really blame either side of that coin, either.
I have a phone, (cheap), which I take most places for work, emergency calls, and the odd personal txt.
I have an iPod which I also take most places as I must always have music with me for fear that my heart will stop when the drums do.
I have a PSP which I don’t take very many places but enjoy playing occasionally.
So, for me, I would quite happily have a shiny phone with an iPod on the inside and if I can get on the net, well great. I do not, however, need a games machine on my phone because I don’t play too many games. Someone might want that, but not me.
It’s “horses for courses” really. Every wants and needs something different, and what I want isn’t going to suit everyone else.
You can’t make everyone happy all the time so why don’t you pull your heads out of your lower orifii and stop crucifying people cause they make something you think you don’t approve of.
Maybe it wasn’t made for you.