Ok, this is topic I know a little bit about. Here goes...
1. Samsung & BlackBerry browsers? That's not a fair comparison at all! Opera Mobile and Nokia's S60 browser are the clear market leaders (and, yes, both of them render full web pages with JavaScript/AJAX as a thumbnail that you can then zoom in on) See: http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/ and http://www.s60.com/browser/ (btw, the S60 browser is open-source and based on webkit). The iPhone browser is supposed to be very good, but no one's really seen it yet. And it took many years of work for Nokia and Opera to get where they are today (Microsoft still isn't there, and they've really been trying).
2. Touchscreens. If all you want is a touchscreen, you can pick up, say, the LG Prada phone or the Samsung Ultra Smart F700. They both sport full-screen touchscreens like the iPhone. There are others.
3. Mobile fonts: please. Virtually all modern smartphones have nice, antialiased fonts. Take any cheap Windows Mobile phone for example.
4. Big Screens: You can get phones with bigger screens than the iPhone. (But until they invent fold-away screens, they're gonna be bulky)
I love it when people talk about how you 'won't be able to dial a number without looking at the phone' Who dials numbers on a cell phone? I don't know anyone's number I just pick them out of my stored numbers list. I'm surprised they aren't asking why it doesn't have a rotary interface.
Good point. Knowing Apple, I also have a feeling they'll come up with some innovative solutions to the no-number-pad problem.
Some ideas:
- Automatically complete phone numbers, as you dial them
- Spotlight-type search for contacts. I.e, I dial "442" and the phone displays all contacts with 442 in the number, address, etc. I could then press the contact I want to call.
- Better voice recognition technology. For example, if I say "Call Mike," the phone displays the top 3 contacts it thinks match my request, I then confirm the default choice or select one out of the list. Maybe the phone even learns?
Obviously, this is all speculation. But the point is, it should be easy to come up with solutions to this problem that actually make the phone easier to use.
This is how I would solve the problem after just a minute of thinking about it:
You may tap twice, and the iPhone makes a noise letting you know that the dial-pad is activated, at which point you can touch any square in a 3x3 grid of numbers, with a voice telling you which number you just pressed.
A problem is if you're holding it upside down. If you're holding it upside down in your hand, the built-in orientation sensor would simply rotate the grid correctly. The less thinking a user has to do, the better.
In other words, it could actually work better than the treo (another phone with a touchscreen), which you definitely can't use to enter a new number blindfolded with its tiny keyboard. And, you could hold the phone upside down and dial the same way, which no conventional phones let you do. A voice announcing the keys is a great idea, as well, since most phones use tones for keypushes.
This would be great in an additional way, because whenever somebody tells you a phone number, they can follow along. "My cell is 111.2345. " "Ok (enters it on the iPhone, and a voice speaks each number.) One. One. One. Three. Four.." "NO, no, I said 2345."
Current voice recognition technology is actually fine. My wife's phone has a dial-by-voice feature that she uses all the time to select from her contacts, and it's a prepaid phone she bought outright for 19 bucks. This suggests to me that voice recognition for things like "Call Mike" is a solved problem.
"calling..." and it starts ringing. The prompts are optional too, you can just push the button and say 'Call someone, joe, yes, yes' and it'll go for it.
I too think it's silly to remember phone numbers...I speed dial or directory dial everything. But the only two people who's cell habits I happen to know, are very often guilty of snail dialing. I don't understand it, but I'd guess that this is a real use case for a lot of people.
1. Samsung & BlackBerry browsers? That's not a fair comparison at all! Opera Mobile and Nokia's S60 browser are the clear market leaders (and, yes, both of them render full web pages with JavaScript/AJAX as a thumbnail that you can then zoom in on) See: http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/ and http://www.s60.com/browser/ (btw, the S60 browser is open-source and based on webkit). The iPhone browser is supposed to be very good, but no one's really seen it yet. And it took many years of work for Nokia and Opera to get where they are today (Microsoft still isn't there, and they've really been trying).
2. Touchscreens. If all you want is a touchscreen, you can pick up, say, the LG Prada phone or the Samsung Ultra Smart F700. They both sport full-screen touchscreens like the iPhone. There are others.
3. Mobile fonts: please. Virtually all modern smartphones have nice, antialiased fonts. Take any cheap Windows Mobile phone for example.
4. Big Screens: You can get phones with bigger screens than the iPhone. (But until they invent fold-away screens, they're gonna be bulky)
5. Mobile interfaces suck. Ok, I'll give you this one. But I've got a bonus anti-feature of the iPhone for the YComb audience: The iPhone is bad news for developers! http://www.fiercedeveloper.com/story/editor-s-corner/2007-01-16