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Brian Cubbison

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Posted:
Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:27 am

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Here are a few thoughts that might be useful to news designers and other journalists:

Navigation: Designers talk about navigation, and the iPhone is a masterpiece. Compare it to moving around in any other cell phone or smart phone. There are some lessons here.

Reporting: Without copy and paste, or syncing of e-mail or notes text, it might not be useful for reporters, although I have posted and edited blog items with it. It's not much of a text wrangler yet. It doesn't shoot video, so you won't get that Zapruder film. The camera is fine, but there's no flash. Reporters would probably also want an audio recorder. It's not yet a mobile journalism tool.

Price: There will be a big market for the cheapest possible cell phone that does nothing but make calls. And there will be a market for a Blackberry or Treo that you can load software into if you're into that, and there will be a market for a device that does things beautifully. The AT&T plan is actually less than the data plan I had, but that's probably my fault as much as anything.

Expectations: There are things I wish it did because of the things it does so well. It has us demanding that our mp3 players do spreadsheets, and our cell phones should be word processors.

Competition: It's major competition for those times in the day when a person might pick up a newspaper. It also makes it much easier for your newsroom's news to make it into someone's hands, no matter where they are. Unless they'd rather watch a feature-length movie on the subway or between classes. And believe me, they will. The competition will be stiff.
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john josey

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Posted:
Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:48 am

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Robb Montgomery wrote::
PC server running Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP - VizEds has been open source since day one. Again, I am sorry for the records loss.


HA! I guess that joke's on me.

BTW, I didn't mean any offense to any Applephiles out there. I was one of you once and have since been reformed.

I have no doubt that the iPhone is the next level of cell technology. The RAZR's what, two years old now? I wholeheartedly believe that Apple's gadgets are better than its computers, but there's no way a cell phone should cost $500 or more. I can buy a pretty good laptop for that with 10-15 times the storage capacity and just as much if not more functionality -- including a music player. Yes, a lappie is way bigger and you need a wi-fi hotspot to get online, but at the end of the day, it's still more practical than a cell phone with an iPod and a few bits of software built in. Just my opinion.
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Dave Shutton

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Posted:
Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:53 am

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Steve Jobs says that design is not the way something looks, it's the way something works. That's why after you use an iPhone for a few days, you stop being impressed by the gewgaws and just think "this is the way a cell phone should be." It's all about the user experience.
That's pretty much my goal for the newspaper I work at.
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Ernie Smith

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Posted:
Mon Jul 09, 2007 10:48 am

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For those criticizing the launch price of the iPhone, I should probably point out that the RAZR launched for $499 with a two-year contract back in '04, and now you can get them for free if you shop around. That's as much as a 4 gig iPhone, minus three years of inflation. And the RAZR currently has 50 million units on the market. So take that as you will.

Apple is not known for heavy price cutting, but the price eventually will trickle down enough so that the technology is feasible for many consumers. Or the iPhone nano will come out.

Remember, the launch price is the price for early adopters.

EDIT: Here's a link to prove that I'm telling the truth about the RAZR launch price:

http://www.mobiletracker.net/archives/2004/11/01/razr_v3_launche.php
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john josey

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Posted:
Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:21 pm

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Ernie Smith wrote::
For those criticizing the launch price of the iPhone, I should probably point out that the RAZR launched for $499 with a two-year contract back in '04, and now you can get them for free if you shop around. That's as much as a 4 gig iPhone, minus three years of inflation. And the RAZR currently has 50 million units on the market. So take that as you will.

Apple is not known for heavy price cutting, but the price eventually will trickle down enough so that the technology is feasible for many consumers. Or the iPhone nano will come out.

Remember, the launch price is the price for early adopters.

EDIT: Here's a link to prove that I'm telling the truth about the RAZR launch price:

http://www.mobiletracker.net/archives/2004/11/01/razr_v3_launche.php


I was one of the ones who waited as long as I could on the RAZR. Mine cost $100, which I still thought was too much, but it's a darn sight better than $500. For what mine does, that price is just barely justified. I can see Apple dropping the price of the iPhone to $300 or so, but that's maybe a year away IMO.
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Billy Simkins

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Posted:
Tue Jul 17, 2007 5:19 pm

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Since we need Iphones to do our jobs, I would guess that these are 100% tax deductible?
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john josey

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Posted:
Sat Jul 21, 2007 8:15 pm

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Billy Simkins wrote::
Since we need Iphones to do our jobs, I would guess that these are 100% tax deductible?


Now a FREE iPhone I would gladly take and play with. Somehow, though, I don't see the government having that much generosity in its heart even if it would come on the back end of the deal.

Anyone see how all the iPhones on campus more or less shut down Duke's wireless network? Funny stuff ...
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Dave Shutton

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Posted:
Sat Jul 21, 2007 9:06 pm

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As Mark Twain said, a lie can travel around the world twice before the truth can get its boots on. This is from ComputerWorld:
Quote:
Duke University said yesterday that widely publicized problems with its campus wireless network it had originally blamed on Apple Inc. iPhones had instead been traced to Cisco Systems Inc. hardware. A fix has been applied, the school added.
Friday, Duke's chief information officer, Tracy Futhey, posted a note on the university's Web site that fingered an unspecified Cisco issue for the trouble. "Cisco worked closely with Duke and Apple to identify the source of this problem, which was caused by a Cisco-based network issue," said Futhey. "Cisco has provided a fix that has been applied to Duke's network and there have been no recurrences of the problem since."
"Earlier reports that this was a problem with the iPhone in particular have proved to be inaccurate," Futhey added.

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john josey

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Posted:
Sun Jul 22, 2007 7:55 pm

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I officially stand corrected. I blame stoopid AP for giving me bad information.

Still, it does present an interesting (potential) problem for network admins and the like -- thousands, if not millions at some point, of handheld gadgets that can access wireless nets the world over. I wonder how far out anyone plotted this thing and if there are plans to create networks of vast scales to accomodate handheld devices with wireless Internet capacity. Now I'm the first to admit I'm completely illiterate when it comes to the alchemy of computer networks and how they work, but it seems these sorts of devices could crash the whole show if nets aren't expanded. Would someone who knows about this sort of thing educate me?
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