[...] $28.85, and it’s all because of Apple’s iPhone. Broadcom, a chipmaker, is rumored to be the company supplying the global positioning system in the new 3G iPhone expected out next month. If that’s the case, expect a bright future for [...]

[...] | BRCM - The New iPhone’s New Winner - GigaOM The New iPhone’s New Winner - GigaOM: “Om says Broadcom for [...]

[...] GIGaom Technorati Tags: iphone,3g,broadcom,gps,global,positioning,system Share and Enjoy: These icons [...]

[...] Malik reports that the hotly anticipated 3G iPhone, rumored to come out next month, will have GPS capability (by [...]

[...] Via GigaOM / BoyGeniusReport ] Share: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share [...]

[...] gigaom.com hat Apple und Broadcom einen Vertrag über die Lieferung von GPS Chips für das kommende iPhone2 [...]

[...] We have all heard the rumors about whether or not GPS functionality will show up on the new iPhone, but according to GigaOM it is a done deal. Their confirmation is based on two factors: private sources that claim a GPS contract for the iPhone was awarded to Broadcom and legal requirements put in place last year by the FCC regarding Enhanced 911. Even though GigaOM is a reputable source, I’m not ready to buy into iPhone GPS just yet. Sources are sources and I’m pretty sure E911 doesn’t even need GPS. [GigaOM] [...]

[...] GigaOm is reporting that Broadcom is Apple’s supplier … [...]

[...] GigaOm is reporting that Broadcom is Apple’s supplier for GPS chips that are inside the next iPhone, expected to arrive with a 3G cellular networking chip within a few weeks. GPS is an increasingly common feature inside smartphones, and is much more accurate than the cell-tower and Wi-Fi positioning system that Apple rolled out in January. [...]

[...] more confirmation on the rumour that the new 3g phone will have a Global Positioning Systme (GPS). GigaOM is trying to grab the rumour by it’s tail for they made an interesting [...]

[...] GigaOm is reporting that Broadcom is Apple’s … [...]

[...] that the rumored GPS functionality of the new 3G iPhone may be true. According to a report on GIGaom, thanks to legal requirements put in place by the FCC, Apple is going to be adding GPS to its new [...]

[...] GigaOm is reporting that Broadcom is Apple’s … Sphere: Related Content [...]

[...] GigaOm is reporting that Broadcom is Apple’s supplier for GPS chips that are inside the next iPhone, expected to arrive with a 3G cellular networking chip within a few weeks. GPS is an increasingly common feature inside smartphones, and is much more accurate than the cell-tower and Wi-Fi positioning system that Apple rolled out in January. [...]

[...] We have all heard the rumours about whether or not GPS functionality will show up on the new iPhone, but according to GigaOM it is a done deal. Their confirmation is based on two factors: private sources that claim a GPS contract for the iPhone was awarded to Broadcom and legal requirements put in place last year by the FCC regarding Enhanced 911. Even though GigaOM is a reputable source, I’m not ready to buy into iPhone GPS just yet. Sources are sources and I’m pretty sure E911 doesn’t even need GPS. [GigaOM] [...]

[...] New iPhone rumoured to have GPS Added on 05/31/2008 at 03:13PM [...]

[...] [Via: GigaOm] [...]

[...] verplichtingen moet de Broadcom daarvan melding maken bij de FCC, zo blijkt uit een artikel van GigaOm. Tot voor kort zou een dergelijk contract van Apple bij een gevestigde partij als SiRF zijn [...]

[...] Sources: GigaOM [...]

[...] M�s informaci�n : GigaOm [...]

[...] de su llegada al mercado está a unos días de distancia. Los rumores están por todos lados y el último de ellos “asegura” que mi próximo teléfono saldrá con GPS The new iPhone has Global [...]

[...] [Via: GigaOm] [...]

[...] GigaOm is reporting that Broadcom is Apple’s … [...]

[...] 3G iPhone with GPS? admin | Cell Phones, iPhone | Saturday, May 31st, 2008 From Gizmodo via GigaOM: [...]

[...] for a bit now and they’ve continued as expected.  As the June 9 Apple WWDC gets closer, GigaOm is reporting that Broadcom has landed the contract to supply GPS to the iPhone.  Now if the expected 3G/GPS [...]

[...] according to GigaOm’s sources, Broadcom was the company that supplied [...]

[...] GigaOm is reporting that Broadcom is Apple’s supplier for GPS chips that are inside the next iPhone, expected to arrive with a 3G cellular networking chip within a few weeks. GPS is an increasingly common feature inside smartphones, and is much more accurate than the cell-tower and Wi-Fi positioning system that Apple rolled out in January. [...]

[...] according to GigaOm’s sources, Broadcom was the company that supplied [...]

[...] Malik says GPS on the iPhone is locked and loaded: [T]here is one thing that’s for sure: The new iPhone has Global Positioning System (GPS) built [...]

[...] identification.  Since then, there hasn’t been a lot more to go on.  Now, GigaOM claims it has determined the supplier of GPS chips to Apple.  The alleged supplier is Broadcom, a [...]

[...] to GigaOm’s  sources, the contract has been nailed down by Broadcom, a relatively new entrant into the GPS market. The [...]

[...] to get GPS? GigaOm has sources giving the GPS chipset contract for the next iPhone to Broadcom, which corroborates other [...]

[...] The New iPhone’s New Winner - GigaOM I think GPS and 3G are going to change the game - we are going mobile. (tags: gps iphone) [...]

[...] Gigaom la respuesta es si e incluso se aventuran a decir que Broadcom será la compañía encargada de [...]

[...] More information here. [...]

[...] Gigaom has an update on the iPhone 3G, and it’s mandated GPS. Read it here. [...]

[...] We have all heard the rumors about whether or not GPS functionality will show up on the new iPhone, but according to GigaOM it is a done deal. Their confirmation is based on two factors: private sources that claim a GPS contract for the iPhone was awarded to Broadcom and legal requirements put in place last year by the FCC regarding Enhanced 911. Even though GigaOM is a reputable source, I’m not ready to buy into iPhone GPS just yet. Sources are sources and I’m pretty sure E911 doesn’t even need GPS. [GigaOM] [...]

[...] TBC | £TBC Apple (via gigaaom) [...]

[...] Om Malik suggests that the iPhone will help catapult location based services into the spotlight and I couldn’t agree more. While social technology will continue to transform the way we communicate, building more social features directly into our mobile devices will help speed the transformation. [...]

[...] seems to have been awarded the contract to supply Apple’s 3G iPhone with GPS, says Om Malik. It’s sort of a given at this point and would probably be a dealbreaker for those looking to [...]

[...] GigaOm is reporting that Broadcom is Apple’s … addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fcafe-iphone.com%2FBlog%2Fgps-coming-to-3g-iphone-22%2F’; addthis_title = ‘GPS+coming+to+3G+iPhone%3F’; addthis_pub = ”; [...]

[...] Según Gigaom la respuesta es si e incluso se aventuran a decir que Broadcom será la compañía encargada de proveer de chips GPS a Apple para dotar al iPhone de esta funcionalidad tan esperada por muchos. [...]

[...] [Via: GigaOm] [...]

[...] позиционирования).   Некоторые, а именно сайт GIGAOM, считают, что GPS модуль для iPhone будет предоставлен  [...]

[...] We have all heard the rumors about whether or not GPS functionality will show up on the new iPhone, but according to GigaOM it is a done deal. Their confirmation is based on two factors: private sources that claim a GPS contract for the iPhone was awarded to Broadcom and legal requirements put in place last year by the FCC regarding Enhanced 911. Even though GigaOM is a reputable source, I’m not ready to buy into iPhone GPS just yet. Sources are sources and I’m pretty sure E911 doesn’t even need GPS. [GigaOM] [...]

[...] The New iPhone’s New Winner - GigaOM I think GPS and 3G are going to change the game - we are going mobile. (tags: gps iphone) [...]

[...] The New iPhone’s New Winner - GigaOM (tags: apple iphone) [...]

[...] according to GigaOm’s sources, Broadcom was the company that supplied [...]

[...] think that we will see a GPS-enabled iPhone this month. Om Malik claims the new iPhone will have new GPS capabilities because of FCC regulations. Emergency 911 [...]

[...] manche Branchenexperten ist die GPS-Funktion bereits ausgemachte Sache. Ein integrierter Chip von Broadcom soll die [...]

[...] GigaOm is reporting that Broadcom is Apple’s … [...]

[...] GigaOm) « Nokia 7310 [...]

[...] function on board. More accurate than cell-tower positioning, and rumors based on FCC info even say Broadcom is chip-provider. Then again, wouldn’t on-board GPS [...]

[...] the guys at GigaOM have recently confirmed that there is GPS support with the contract being given to Broadcom; so if [...]

[...] The New iPhone’s New Winner - Om Malik, GigaOm [...]

[...] function on board. More accurate than cell-tower positioning, and rumors based on FCC info even say Broadcom is chip-provider. Then again, wouldn’t on-board GPS [...]

[...] function on board. More accurate than cell-tower positioning, and rumors based on FCC info even say Broadcom is chip-provider. Then again, wouldn’t on-board GPS [...]

[...] function on board. More accurate than cell-tower positioning, and rumors based on FCC info even say Broadcom is chip-provider. Then again, wouldn’t on-board GPS [...]

[...] GigaOm is reporting that Broadcom is Apple’s … No tags for this post. [...]

[...] Concepts analyst Will Strauss says the GPS chip is based on Broadcom’s Global Locate technology (and not a Broadcom chip, as we had initially reported) that has been licensed by Infineon. Time to re-check that information [...]

[...] Stacey Higginbotham, Monday, July 14, 2008 at 9:00 PM PT Comments (0) The iPhones have been unboxed and torn down, so now it’s the Wall Street watchers’ turn to tally up who won and who lost among the companies that provide chips for the envy-inducing device. The big winner is Infineon with four chips, including GPS and 3G radio. Little-known chip firm TriQuint also won, with three power amplifiers inside the phone. Wi-Fi was once again provided by Marvell, but Broadcom scored low, with only a touchscreen controller and no GPS (which we had been expecting). [...]

I love the new GPS feature. It should make it a ton more accurate than the iPhone 1.0.

I wonder if it will be able to run the new Google Earth API that just came out for embedding on blogs, websites, etc?

I’ve been playing with the Google Maps API and this is the best I could come up with so far, but I look forward to tinkering with their new Earth API:

(link)

Instead of imagining, you could just get one of the many Windows Mobile devices that has had built in GPS for years. They also come with this amazing feature called “copy/paste”. So far I’ve seen that the new iphone is going to add 3G functionality (although no explanation of why such an obvious feature was left off in the first place) and GPS. What about the tons of other missing features?

As for wondering “what impact it will have on standalone devices and if it will catalyze change and new innovation in that market”.. get real. A phone (that has a very small percentage of the total mobile market share) is not going to have any noticeable effect on standalone devices other than a few fanbois that will somehow rig it up in their car as a tiny, slow GPS. As for innovation, Apple is the one trying to catch up so releasing a feature that others have had for years isn’t going to spawn anything other than questions of why it took them so long.

The windows platform you talk of is crap and has been crap for a long time now. Apple will succeed in getting it to the hands of allot of people something Microsoft has not done except for a few techies. I have worked for HP for 12 + years in the Tech field and only a few of us use the WM devices because of all of the problems they have.. lock-ups, crap software, ect. Your anger towards Apple is so out of place. I’ve used Macs for under a year now and I am happy as hell to finally get on a platform that I don’t have to reboot multiple times a day. The iPhone is great, it is coming to the masses… something like I said Microsoft has NOT done with their WM platform. This is Apples first phone and NOT the last, they will improve every year something the WM has not done. Apple came out with an amazing product, something no one else has done before or should I say DONE RIGHT!!!! Good luck with your WM devices, I have noticed all of the great features the iphone has is starting to show up in the software the WM devices run, I wonder why…

Where did you hear that rumor The street.com? There has been many reports of Broadcom sweeping every chip in the iPhone. The Wifi, Bluetooth, FM, GPS, and 3g chipset system on a chip. These rumors must have been made by someone with loads of Broadcom call options. Sirf still seems the best bet. It has the most robust roadmap on the software side. I can imagine coy Jobs threatening Sirf with Global Locate to get a better price but Sirf is much more concentrated on the consumer experience and the carriers love them.

Are the GPS chips the same chips used by SkyCaddie? This is a golf accessory that give you yardage in a golf course. If it is possible, would it not be cool to have this on a phone that has GPS capabilities? Why is it not available yet on phones? I would be cool not to have to carry two gadgets at the golf course. I don’t care what who’s phone has this capability, I will but it.

“But whether it’s a new 2G model or a super-fast 3G”

I’m sorry but any blogger/writer that includes this quote in an article about an Iphone has no creditability in my book. Have you been living in a cave? A GPS chip is a foregone conclusion but the jury is still out on the 3G chip? Please, before you write articles like this do your research.

@robarmy: Have you ever used a WM device? Care to elaborate on why it’s “crap”? There are many, many millions more WM devices than there are iphones so it’s flat out wrong to say MS has only put it in the hands of “a few techies”. My WM device doesn’t ever lock up and unlike the iphone, has millions of choices for 3rd party software. Crap software to me is when you’re handset maker tells you what apps you can run and if they don’t have an app you need then you’re out of luck.

I didn’t mention any anger towards Apple, but if you’re going to bring it up my XP laptop at work works perfectly with no reboots. Our Windows Servers that run our Fortune 500 business work just fine without reboots (literally months at a time and most reboots are just because of upgrades being performed). All of that plus I have choices over what hardware I use, software is designed for Windows first and it’s a hell of a lot cheaper for the same or better specs.

Ok, back to phones. As I said above WM has many millions more users than the iphone so saying that “it is coming to the masses… something like I said Microsoft has NOT done with their WM platform” is simply a lie. If you had used a WM phone you would have seen the improvements that have come with each version.

With such a late entry into the mobile handset market Apple had a great opportunity to deliver something truly amazing. Instead, as with most of their products, they delivered something that is shiny and pretty, but lacks basic functionality that others have had for years. On top of that they kept their horrible philosophy of a closed system that benefits them rather than the consumer. If Microsoft doesn’t make an app for what I need then I have other choices including making it myself (something I have already done). If my battery goes dead on a long trip I just pop it out and put in a freshly charged battery, while you’re left with a dead phone. If it has to be replaced you have to pay about 4x what I would pay, ship it somewhere, wait, wait some more. If I want to use my phone on another network I swap out SIM cards, while you’re left with the 1 network that Apple said you have to use. I can create, read and edit MS Office documents and I can use ActiveSync to stay connected to our Exchange Server at work, while the iphone has about zero functionality for business users. I could go on and on, but the bottom line is the iphone is only good for “hip” people who think it will make them look cool. It’s a huge failure when it comes to users who want actual functionality and control over the device that cost them more than a better WM device.

What “great features” do you think the iphone has that WM devices don’t have? I can list a TON of features WM has had for years that the current iphone doesn’t have and the 2nd iphone still won’t have. I’d accuse Apple of trying to copy WM, but they left off so many features it’s really nothing like it.

I do not why people ge so bitter when Apple succeed. Like scionguy. Windows is ALWAYS trying to catch up with Apple , if you think about it. iPhone is a complete new device that did not exist before. I’ve had 7 smart phones given by my job, could never browse the net or play videos as in my iPhone. As far as GPS goes, who cares? my car has GPS built in and do not walk around looking for satellite link.
ONE MORE THING…. PLAIN iPHONE ENVY. JAJJJAJAJA

You wrote: “there is one thing that’s for sure: The new iPhone has Global Positioning System (GPS) built into it, thanks to legal requirements put in place by the FCC. ”

However, the 2005 article you link to talks about a law set to go into effect at the end of THAT year requiring location tracking ability, and which in the case of AT&T (nee Cingular) only requires 300-yard accuracy. Two questions:
1) If the law required GPS by the end of 2005, wouldn’t the existing iPhone already have it, thus in now way making this a possible feature “upgrade” for a new version of the phone?
2) If the current iPhone is already compliant with existing law, is there any reason that the new iPhone would be “required” to add GPS?

Just wondering.

– Bob

@apple fan NOT: “I do not why people ge so bitter when Apple succeed. Like scionguy. Windows is ALWAYS trying to catch up with Apple , if you think about it. iPhone is a complete new device that did not exist before. I’ve had 7 smart phones given by my job, could never browse the net or play videos as in my iPhone.”

I’m not bitter when Apple succeeds, I’m bitter that so many people are duped by shiny devices and hoping to help them realize there are better devices out there already. Your comment is a perfect example. NOTHING on the iphone was new! I can’t count the number of people who have been dumbfounded when I explained that touchscreen phones existed long before the iphone or when I list the features that existed 3-4 years ago on WM that the iphone is missing.

If you had a WM touchscreen device (i.e. not a WM standard that runs on flip phones without touchscreen) then you didn’t know how to use it. I browse the web and watch videos perfectly on mine and yes the website scrolls with my finger, zooms in and out, is the full page just like it would render on my PC, etc. It even supports Flash Lite which Steveo won’t give you permission to use on the iphone.

“As far as GPS goes, who cares? my car has GPS built in and do not walk around looking for satellite link.”

That much we agree on.

“ONE MORE THING…. PLAIN iPHONE ENVY. JAJJJAJAJA”

Haha, nope I’m not envious of the iphone at all. I’ll keep my WM device that has more features thank you.

Regardless of whether or not WinCe devices are crap, they are already getting their tail handed to them by Apple in terms of sales and internet usage.

Scionguy: “I’m bitter that so many people are duped by shiny devices and hoping to help them realize there are better devices out there already.”

You obviously have no idea at all about what you are talking about (or have consumed too much of the Kool-Aid), otherwise you would be bitter as all heck at MS for the load of crap they have perpetrated upon society in the form of ‘what they call’ software. All stolen ideas (but aren’t most ideas stolen anyway) that are executed in the most unreliable way. Crash, crash, crash.

I’ve owned a ridiculous number of so-called ’smart’ phones and every one of those $400 and $500 devices was a piece of crap that eventually began crashing repeatedly because of poor hardware and poor software design. All these ‘cell phone companies’ and MS & Symbian & Unix OS phones (yep, owned one of them too) ALL FAILED. No (virtually) software updates, unusable web access, and eventually unreliable for use as phones (hard to make or receive calls when the device is always in a state of crashing).

NOT A SINGLE (smart) PHONE was worth it (Sony, Ericsson, Motorola, Treo, Nokia), that I had purchased… Until a REAL Smart Phone (and really the 1st one!): iPhone.

That’s what Kool-Aid drinkers populate these sites defending MS or they’ll have to admit they they were the ones duped all along…

Apple gets my money ONLY because they give me something that other phones are incapable of doing (regardless of their listed ‘capabilities or chipsets).

I’ve had a Windows smartphone for several years. Yes, it has a touch screen, but not a multi-touch screen which is a significant difference. The software is a heap of junk - locking up and just generally not working well. The web experience is a complete joke. I’ve had an iPod touch for a month now and used its features infinitely more than any of the ones on my “smart” phone.

scionguy is vastly exaggerating WM phone/OS capabilites, I have used WM5 HTC phones, blackberry devices and am now on the iPhone. Sure the WM5 has features galore, I hacked mine to do tons of stuff but does it do any of that without being buggy/laggy 70-80% of the time?? I seriously doubt it and if anyone tells you WM5 phones are vastly superior to what can be done on a jailbreaked iPhone their smoking crack or owning tons of MS stock. Apple sure did ripoff what was out there….but who cares!! They improved on what was already available just as Google’s Android OS is going to do the iPhone.

Scionguy, you just dont get it. It’s not that WM devices have more features or that the iPhone has less, its about how the iPhone allows people to use features that makes the difference.

WM devices are a nightmare in usability. Pocket IE does not render webpages like a desktop, and the third party browsers still dont come close to Mobile Safari’s WebKit engine. The touchscreens on WM devices are horrible, scrolling is nowhere near as smooth as the iPhone. Everything is buried in menu’s and submenus that make no sense, and I can’t count the number of times my phone has frozen or had some display glitch that required a reboot on WM 6.1. This is not how phones should work.

To answer your question about what the iPhone has that WM devices do not, the iPhone has an accelerometer, a proximity sensor, a very advanced, large, and hi-res touchscreen with multi-touch technology, one of the most powerful processors, 8-16GB of storage built in, but most importantly, it has software that is smarter, easier, and better designed than WM and that brings all these features together. Name *one* WM device on the market now that can claim all of that (and more as you say they do).

Yes, it may lack some openness and features, but to be honest I cannot wait to dump my windows mobile phone come june for the new iPhone. Especially with 3G, GPS, Exchange support, and whatever else Apple manages to come up with.

@ Scionguy
“What “great features” do you think the iphone has that WM devices don’t have?”

My iPhone is easy to use. That is the most important thing, and WM sucks to use.

“The new iPhone has Global Positioning System (GPS) built into it, thanks to legal requirements put in place by the FCC.”

GPS isn’t required; as the article you link notes, AT&T’s wireless division (formerly Cingular) must be accurate with 1,000 feet (300 meters), which they have mostly accomplished with cellular tower triangulation, which is NOT the same technology used by Apple (which is Google’s cell tower triangulation and Skyhook Wi-Fi location).

The FCC does not require GPS. Assisted GPS is enough for the degree of accuracy required by the FCC for emergency services provision requirement.

The new iPhone may or may not have GPS, but if it does, it’s because Apple decided to include it, not because the FCC requires it.

@”ScionGuy”

You are obviously one of those greasy uber-geeks who hates Apple for the pettiest of reasons, not least because of the trendy image associated with Apple users. You also are of the type that just isn’t able to comprehend why most people care more about usability, integration, and aesthetics than a feature list on the side of a box when purchasing a phone or computer. People purchase Macs or the iPhone because they are excellent devices that are easy and enjoyable to use.

Don’t kid yourself that the iPhone isn’t one of the most advanced cellphones on the market. It runs on a 620mhz ARM processor with PowerVR MBX graphics core, has a 3.5″ capacitive and glass-covered multi-touch screen, and runs one of the most advanced embedded operating system ever created. But what is MOST IMPORTANT and what separates it from every other smartphone on the market is the brilliant interface and ease of use. It is like no other device I have ever used. It’s laughable that you actually offer up the travesty that is “Windows Mobile” as a superior phone OS with “thousands of software applications”. Windows Mobile is probably the biggest piece of rubbish that has ever been conceived as an operating system. It’s buggy, slow, incredibly unstable, and is truly a pain in the ass to try to use. I mean seriously, have you actually tried to conduct business with a WinMo smartphone? I’ve had at least 6 or 7 Windows Mobile devices over the years, most recently of the “Smartphone” variety, and they all are complete crap.

Is it really any wonder why not even a year after the iPhone introduction, and only being available on a few carriers in a few countries, that the iPhone chalks up 5X the amount of web traffic of *ALL* windows mobile devices ever sold, combined?

And just wait until the SDK is finally finished and the App Store goes online. Mobile OSX is going to rapidly become the platform of choice for mobile software development and will completely revolutionize what is possible on a mobile phone. Already, without any formal SDK or even documentation, amateur iPhone hackers have whipped up new applications that put everything made up to this point on Windows mobile to shame. Just watch what happens over the next 6 months.

If you truly believe that the iPhone won’t have an enormous impact on the mobile industry and the evolution of mobile service, then you are not only a geek, but a damn moron. EVERY cellphone manufacturer from Espoo to Tokyo are racing to create iPhone “killers”, mostly by directly ripping-off the glossy black and chrome of the hardware, and graphics accelerated interface. Major websites, from the BBC to CNN to ESPN are creating iPhone-optimized mobile versions of their websites.

When the 3G iPhone has it’s worldwide debut and launch in the next few weeks, prepare to truly see the extent of the phenomenon. If you think all this iHype is going to fizzle out anytime soon, then you should put your wallet where your big mouth is and short a bunch of Apple stock. I would love to see how that will go for you…

you’re all missing the most important point… The iphone runs Mac OS X with an optimized UI and development environment (cocoa touch). It’s not a mobile OS or a scaled down OS it is actual leopard based full unix (if jailbroken with bsd tools) core animation spitting captive touch Mac OS X. The iPhone therefore is a Mac Computer by the technical definition. That’s one feature no other mobile phone can claim.

To ScionGuy,

Thanks for a great post. I agree with your take on Apple.

I have just tried the ipod touch. Interesting device, but you are locked down to the “Apple world”, I thought I could use it with Netflix, oops…
I guess Apple wants me to use the IToons store till I die. In the end this closed system will move to something else…and a new open system will take over like wild fire all over the world…Apple is just a stepping stone on the path to a open system. Apple’s has always been a inovator, but at the end of the day, their vision is very narrow (the ecosystem is a big as the player), platforms based on a open system - Android is a example, will win, fluid movement from network to network is the best choice for the end user,open networks, open sytems, flex dev practices and eco system which has a high velocity of inovation will will win. The killer applicatin’s wrapped in a open environment will win at the end of the day. The consumer will vote with their wallet at the end of the day to move this along, it will take a long time, but this is where it will go. It is the law of natural selection.

Apple has gotten their ass handed to them in Europe by the lowly HTC Touch, and the 3G iPhone will get its ass haded to it by the HTC Touch Diamond. These phones will be cheaper, will have better carrier support, more eye candy, and will also actually be able to do more (imagine trying to sell a phone in Europe without a CONSUMER feature like MMS. Great usability there, isn’t it)

Regarding the iPhone running Leopard, the iPhone runs OSX as much as WM devices run Windows.

@ Surur: “Regarding the iPhone running Leopard, the iPhone runs OSX as much as WM devices run Windows.”

Bong! Nope, Windows Mobile has a completely different kernal to desktop Windows and suffers from a terribly constrained architecture harking back to it’s origins as Windows CE crammed into the tiny amounts of memory then available. Even now it is still around 40MBs in size.

In contrast OS X on the iPhone is an amazing 500MBs in size and has the same rock-solid BSD unix-based kernal and frameworks as the desktop version of Mac OS X and was designed from the start to run on the powerful 620MHz processor with 128MB of RAM and multiple gigabytes of storage and hardware accelerated graphics subsystem.

I’ve owned several very expensive Windows Mobile PDA smart phones and can’t believe that you would laud a platform that as a design “feature” would wipe all the data, programs and settings if the battery went flat or it accidentally hard reset – an all-to-common occurrence.

Then there is their total inability to run Web 2.0 Ajax apps in their pathetic web browsers, their ridiculously tiny buttons and stupid, stupid Start Menu (on a tiny screen like that! Why for the love of Pete?) that force you to use a stylus which always gets lost.

Then there are all the chromed plastic buttons that stop working after way too short a time and the ridiculously rickety slide out keypads with the too-tiny buttons. The list goes on.

I agree the iPhone is missing some important features, but most of these lacks are easily fixed with the 2-years worth of free software updates guaranteed by Apple’s deferred revenue policy on the iPhone.

ps. Who needs terribly expensive MMS when you’ve got free, powerful email?

-Mart

@Martin
Is OSX Mobile binary binary compatible with desktop OSX? No.
Is OSX Mobile 100% Api compatible with desktop OSX? No.

Is it hellishly bloated, and unable to run on cheap hardware? Yes, and that will lose it the smartphone battle.

That you are still talking about the phone being wiped by powerloss tells me you have not used a WM phone since 2004, that issue is long solved.

Regarding the 2 years of free updates provided by Apple - yar one has been a complete bust- where is the bluetooth stack improvemnts, here is the A2DP, where is cut and paste, why cant you use the music on the device as a ring tone?

Regarding AJAX, I am running the wonderful Opera Mobile 9.5 on my Tilt, and you know, it smokes Safari Mobile. It supports more AJAX technologies, does bettr on Acid 2 and 3 and supports flash, and is much more stable than the crashtastic Mobile Safari. Thats just one advantage of an open platform.

I guess Apple must be running out of easily impressed fanboys, seeing how they lost smartphone marketshare in Q1 2008.

No it runs OS X. Take a look at the file system on a jailbroken iPhone. For real geeks apple did some that no one else has ever done. They took a desktop OS and put it on a mobile phone. I mean you can run an apache web server on the device. The iPhone is not a product its a platform, the mac platform. Development of apps on the iPhone is identical to that of the mac its called Xcode. If you can write an app on the mac you already can write an app on the iPhone. The device was kept closed on purpose for the first year so apple could make sure they understood how to approach the distobution system for the 3rd party apps and it seems like they got a pretty good plan. The iPhone IS a computer running desktop OS X. It doesnt look like it when you use an iPhone and that’s only because the desktop UI is not good for a 3.5 inch screen. The UI is called multi-touch. At its core it runs the same software as a mac. Also with the intrests of full disclosure I’m writing this post on an iPhone.

You can say exactly the same things for WM, and that part of its success. It has a windows directory and registry also, and development occurs in Visual Studio too.

And of course I am writing this on my Tilt, and more easily due to the full hard keyboard.

of course the binaries are different. The original tiger PPC binaries aren’t compatible with the Current intel binaries. The processors are differnt therfore the binaries are different. Just because it uses different binaries doesnt mean its not OS X. It doesnt have all the same API’s because they aren’t all aplicable. The quality on a2dp sucks. Why include a redundant feature that sucks. Also they lost market share cause they ran out of phones.

@Nick
So its not binary compatible, and not100% API compatible, and this is different from WM how?

I am sure any technology Apple doesnt use, like MMS, A2DP and 3G sucks for you, until Apple uses it of course.

BTW, the shortages only started in Q2. I wonder what their Q2 marketshare looks like.

@ Surur

About your comments about API/binary compatibility: Is that different from WM?
No. WM is also not binary or API compatible with Windows.
(Hell, Windows itself is not compatible with Windows sometimes…_
However, the iPhone API is using the base OS X APIs, such as the different Core Frameworks
(Core Image, Core Video, Core Data, etc.)
Separate from that, some APIs are added for the mobile device (e.g. multi-touch events) and
some APIs are removed that do not make sense on a mobile device.
Of course on the iPhone the UI is different.
That is because Apple has the idea that on a phone you need a simple button UI and
not the Start menu style as WM tries to copy from a desktop computer…

About cheap hardware:
WM devices are not cheap. They cost the same or more as an iPhone…

About updates:
Maybe those items you mention are not really requested or needed?
And maybe the v2.0 software will add those items…
On the other hand, how about some HTC drivers that indeed do hardware accelerated video drawing?

About Opera:
That doesn’t matter in the end. WM is not succeeding as an internet device.
As written by loosely_coupled, the iPhone/iPod touch devices are used more for internet browsing
than all WM devices ever sold combined.

It seems that Apple is doing something correctly.
Maybe the amount of features of a phone is less important than the amount of features usable by normal people,
instead of computer geeks/techies that can use and (like to) work around problems of a device.

Yes, I consider myself one of those geeks.
However, I am going to buy the 3G iPhone when it is available.

BTW, why is it that a new WM/Symbian/Linux phone is always positioned as an ‘iPhone killer’ and
never as an ‘BlackBerry killer’, ‘WM (fill in brand&type) killer’ or ‘Android (fill in brand&type) killer’?

Are some people jealous or scared of the iPhone product?
(Also same for the iPods)

its OS X because it runs the Mach micro kernal same as desktop OSX. I didn’t know WM ran win32. If it does that’s news to me. That’s why iPhone is OS X and win mobile is not windows. As far as A2DP the average song file has a bit rate of 128-256 Kb/s consistant Bluetooth tranfer rates are between 4-8 Kb/s that’s why it sucks. You may be right about the market share and I shoulve cited a source. So I’m not gonna comment about that.

Wow Om,
Your words have even gotten to Apple Insider! The gps is only a 2 dollar chip which is really not that much revenue for Broadcom, so how is it a big winner? If you think that is swell what do you think of if Marvell does indeed have the 3g chip in the iPhone? That’s what Investor’s Business daily is reporting.
(link)

@Pieter
Your circular argument that the iPhone is selling well, therefore is doing something right is defeated simply by nothing WM phones are selling better. Even Vista is selling better than OSX. You are going to need a better argument than that.

About cheaper WM devices - everyone knows the volume are with lower prices, and WM phones that can run on 200 MHz processors and 32-64 MB RAM are going to do a lot to penetrate the 3rd world. WM phones are the second biggest selling smartphone OS in India (and in the world) for example. When HTC announced the HTC Diamond and Ameo, both top of the range expensive devices, they did not forget to also release the HTC P3400, a low end device released in Asia into the developing market.

Regarding updates, its hilarious how you are still waiting for the basics, and paying Apple’s inflated “subscription” and has so far hardly received anything, except the privilege to buy more stuff from Apple.

How about things like voice dialling, bluetooth OBEX, GPS serial profile, Dial up networking, disk mode etc etc.

HTC did not promise me drivers, unlike Jobs who promised you regular significant updates. You must be very disappointed.

Regarding Opera - maybe WM was not designed as an internet tablet to start with, unlike the iPhone. I know WM devices have guided more people using GPS than all the IPhone and iPhone Touches combined. With the focus on Web 2.0, and the best mobile browsers on the WM platform, this is set to soon change.

Its interesting that you are so eager to upgrade to 3G, you must have sorely missed it, while I have been downloading podcasts OTA for years. Good luck joining 2005.

Surur you dont know what your talking about. For apple to succeed microsoft doesnt have to fail. The smart phone market is big enough for several players. As far as the developing world China Mobile reports that there are over 400,000 iPhones active on their network. The funny thing about that is the iPhone has never been officially released there. Apple is very good at what they do. They look to define ever field they enter. They defined the desktop OS they defined the portable music player and now they are looking to define mobile computing. That’s why every other device is compared to the iPhone. There were mobile phones before iPhone and mobile phones after iPhone.

Yes, the Chinese nouveau riche needed a new toy to demonstrate their extravagance. Of course, since entering Chinese is a trial on the iPhone, and you cant use a stylus, its certaily not about practicality, much like here in the west for most iphone users who needed an Apple-branded status symbol.

Interesting that you mention the iPhone smuggle trade. Those hundeeds of thousands of American iPhonez overseas were instrumental in fooling people into thinking the iPhone outsells WM in America, when its far from the case.

The failure of Apple’s exclusive carier business model is also interesting, as its a direct result of their hubris in thinking they could outsmart the hackers. Security by obscurity must have given them false confidence.

Who cares where its activated, apple is still bringing in tons of revenue. Why is everyone so convinced that the iPhone will fail. There is plenty of room in this market. Every one should be greatful. Apple is pushing the envelope and shaking up what a mobile device is capable of. Everyone benefits by apple’s innovations. Why would blackberry plan on making a touch screen phone code named apple killer if apple wasn’t doing something right. Apple is called competition which is good for everyone. Didn’t the CEO of RIM just say typing on glass was impossible.

@Nick:
“Apple is pushing the envelope and shaking up what a mobile device is capable of”

This is the problem. That sentence right there. There are plenty of entrants to the cellphone business each year. Only Apple can pretend to have invented the cellphone, and expect to be believed.

Is Apple pushing the envelope by integrating GPS? Thats just silly, but our friend Om Malik and you seem to believe its true, despite this very much being a 2006 feature. Claiming credit where none is due is a rather bad trait.

When Apple catches up to “what a mobile phone is capable of” such as, for example, being able to take video, I will stop laughing at the naivety of iPhone users who think they have the greatest phone ever.

I have no problem with Apple selling millions, I just hope, from Jobs down, they will stop pretending the iPhone has made all other smartphones obsolete.

So you see, its you and the other iPhone pundits who are the arrogant ones after all. Get some humility, its on special today.

Exclusive carrier????? The iphone will be carried on several networks in over fifty countries. Some of those countries have multiple carriers who will be officially supporting the phone. The ones that I know off the top of my head are australia, turkey and south africa. I’m sure there are more.

This conversation that we’re having has nothing to do with GPS at this point. What I’m talking about is software. There is not a single device in the world that can hold a candle to the software on the iPhone. Your missing the point. It’s the software. The idea behind the iphone is that it is a Screen that can display anything that developers can think of and they can do this with a complete SDK with desktop API’s and a desktop OS at it’s core. It’s all about the software. We are arguing two different things. There maybe other devices out there that have more hardware features but none have the software that the iPhone has. And what’s with the arrogant comment? I think we’re having a civil discussion. What’s with the personal attack?

Just the gps?, what about the other features missing?

@Nick
This conversation that we’re having has nothing to do with GPS at this point. What I’m talking about is software. There is not a single device in the world that can hold a candle to the software on the iPhone.
————–

What evidence do you have that the software is special on the iPhone? Is it just the GUI (easily replicated) or something else? Do you think its because the disk image is 500 MB? Anything else.

I can tell you why WM software is more advanced than the iPhone software. Things like file system encryption, remote wipe, internet sharing, bluetooth FTP, today screen plug-in architecture, remote policy enforcement, support for a wide range of hardware etc. Now you may say that these features are difficult to use (most are not) but that just requires a layer on top, and tells you nothing about the foundation, which is pretty solid.

In short, the iPhone’s lack of features exposes it for an immature OS, with a bit of glitter than seem to fascinate some people.

@Surur
Windows 7 will have a multi-touch UI. Remote wipe and policy enforcement are announced features of upgrade 2.0. Your begging the question about a wide range of devices that’s completely counter intuitive to everything apple believes in. OK here we go see if you can follow.
The iphone OS is the same as the OS on my macbook. The same OS. They both render animation using the core animation API. They both render animation using the core animation API. They Both accelerate 3D graphics using open GL. They Both render images using Core Image and they both playback audio and video using quicktime. That’s called the media layer they are identical between the mac and iphone. The underlying layer to the media layer is the Kernel. The Kernel has two names. Mach Micro Kernel and Darwin. The next layer is called the application frameworks layer. These differ on the two systems because the main input devices (the mouse on the mac and the finger on the iphone) are different. On the mac the application framework is known as cocoa on the iphone cocoa touch. Therefore the user events differ depending on which one your using, on a mac for example one would be a mouse over. On an iphone holding your finger down till the buttons jiggle.
Your argument about an immature OS is total rubbish. It’s OS X the most stable commercial consumer or business desktop OS. With modification anyone who can develop for unix can write iphone apps. The only thing windows mobile has in common with windows is the name. It’s based on the Windows CE kernel which is distictively different to the Win 32 NT kernel in windows XP and windows Vista. There will never be desktop quality programs on a windows mobile device do to it’s basic foundations. Windows CE was originally meant to run under 1MB.
On april 1 2008 fortune magazine did a random survey of people who’ve owned different smart-phones for 6 months. At the end of the survey they found that 79% of iphone owners were “Very satisfied”, Blackberry garnered 54% “Very satisfied”, and the highest rated winmo was the good old samsung black jack which was the phone i had before i got the iphone garnered a whopping 33% “Very satisfied”. You are the minority my man… How does it feel? Here is the link if you don’t believe me http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/04/01/iphone-scores-79-in-customer-satisfaction-survey-rim-trails-at-54/….

So in short, your opinion is based on the “potential” of the OS, versus the reality.

WM supports DirectX. It supports WMV and WMA. It supports many of the desktop windows technologies, just like the iPhone, and uses a subset of the win32 API, just like the iPhone.

All of that is IRRELEVANT. Its what you do with the OS that matters, and Apple has done hardly anything with it. Yes, some things are coming, but actually actually denying the iPhone OS is immature is pure madness. In fact, I would say its about 5 years behind…

Lets put it this way - if it was more mature you would not be sitting here waiting for those wonderful updates Apple promised, like maybe being able to cut and paste.

@Surur

I did not claim that the iPhone sells more that WM devices.
I only repeated that they are used more for browsing the internet.
If you say that WM is better than the iPhone by looking at sales figures, you would and should also claim that Symbian, Linux and BlackBerry are better than WM, as they sell way more than WM…

About higher volumes for lower spec’ed devices:
The devices you mention are not cheaper than an iPhone.
A 200 MHz WM device is about the same price as an iPhone…
Something with better specs is way more expensive.

About the waiting for 3G, I am living in Holland where the iPhone has not
been introduced yet.
Before you now start that that is Apple’s fault, you have the same problem with handsets not being available in your country
(assuming you live in the USA).
I see multiple times on websites like engadget or gizmodo that a handset is finally available in the USA…

About HTC not promising drivers:
First of all, they promise a high performance handset, implying hardware accelerated video, due to the mentioning of the chipset.
That is something often done in Windows land: Mentioning specifications that in the end say nothing about the real usability of a product.
Lastly, they actually did promise drivers, than backed off and offered ‘improved software’.

About the missing of 3G:
I did not miss that at all, as I currently have no 3G or internet on my phone.
I think that the speed of 3G as promised is not really significant for 3 reasons:
As you are on a small device, the speed of the pipe is not so interesting, as you overflow the device.
See the multiple speed tests between the iPhone and other phones that are using 3G but are also slower.
Second, the 3G pipes give much larger latency, which is more important for browsing than the bandwidth.
Lastly, most people will not accept the price of a full-blown 3G connection subscription and will choose a lower speed alternative, while at the same time comparing the maximum speed of their 3G device with the actual speed of the iPhone.

Here in the Netherlands, a 1.8 MBit/s 3G connection including hotspot access from e.g.
T-Mobile is 70 euro/month, excluding voice minutes.
That is not funny. Therefor, people choose a smaller Web-n-walk 3G, with nicer prices.
Max 384 kbit/s, without hotspot access is 19.50 euro/month, max 128 is 9.50.
Those prices are on top of a voice pack.
What you then see is (as I have written), is that people compare the maximum speed of their 3G device,
with the actual speed of the iPhone… That does not seem fair if you are not planning to pay the price of the subscription…

About GPS guiding people. I would think that the standalone devices are used more.
On top of that, for instance TomTom is using Linux…

Again, I am not waiting for 3G, but for the iPhone introduction in my country.
I think that the price of the device and plan is better than what most people think.
A ‘cheap’ phone with an expensive plan that does not allow use of the features is crap.
An ‘expensive’ device with a reasonable plan is better.

Funny that you mention downloading podcasts. That podcast name is from the iPod…

BTW, your “desktop quality programs” statement is pure nonsense. What do you call Skype, or SlingBox, or Opera Mobile 9.5? Have a gander at Touchflo 3D and tell me WM cant do anything the iPhone can.

In fact, iPhone users should hope they get access to the quality apps that are available on the WM platform, like Pocket Informant, and multi-codec media players like Core Media player.

BTW, Quake was running on WM well before the iPhone.

my link got broken (link) Surur what are you talking about? The iphone doesn’t run a sub-set. It runs OS X. The iPhone with the 2.0 capability will have every major business feature added on. Push Email Contacts and Calendar with Exchange support, plus a fully open OS X SDK that has been in the development community officially for 6 months unofficially for one year. You can host an apache web server on an iPhone. You can run ssh in fact it can do anything a unix workstation can do. you can run soulseek on an iphone. plus there is a robust official app distribution channel officially through the app store coming as part of upgrade 2.0 in june and unofficially through Installer.app. Plus OS X has had a robust development environment for the last 7 or so years and for 15 years before that as Next Step. And close to 30 years as BSD UNIX. It’s the tablet P.C. Gates has been trying to create. Windows Mobile in it’s current form has no basis in win32 it actually is based on windows C.E. which was originally created in 1994 to run on systems containing storage of less then 1MB. How can you not see the difference.

Opera Mobile is based on a port of Webkit an open source apple technology (web core and java script) which is the technological basis of Apple’s safari. That being said surfing the internet is not nearly as great on a winmo phone than as on a iphone. It’s a phone i hope that it can make phone calls Voip or not. Apple said that it would not technologically block wifi voip apps on the iphone and ipod touch. I’ve used touch flow and it’s impossible to type on the iphone is awesome to type on. The overall experience is not even close to iPhone. Sling Box already announced they have made a client for the iphone using the SDK. And have you seen quake running on an iphone with the accelerometer as the input device for movement and the touch screen to fire. Go ahead youtube it…

@pieter
You are the one who brought up sales figures as if it said something of value. Secondly, why should web browsing be the measure of a smartphone. It has many other uses. BTW, only Symbian sells more than WM.

On price, you can get a HTC Touch for £149 sim-free, and almost certainly free on contract. Show me the iPhone at that price. With the iPhone you pay for the handset AND is still tied into the contract.

RE 3G, I am in UK, I only pay £32 om T-Mobile for full unlimited HSDPA AND voice plan. I find that pretty affordable, and its cheaper than the O2 iPhone contracts, for which you only get (spotty) EDGE. With a good browser, having a big pipe certainly makes a difference, and it makes a HUGE difference when it comes to streaming media like YouTube, and an even more gigantic difference when you are the thing my laptop (as allowed by the HSDPA T-Mobile plan)

Re GPS - of course you get TomTom for Windows Mobile also. Before stand-alone GPS devices got cheap enough, WM handhelds were the main way people were doing navigation in Europe. Mitac built their whole company around that.

@Nick
Opera Mobile 9.5 does not use webkit, in fact the rendering engine is the same as the desktop one. But you seem to be missing the point, which is that your statement about desktop class apps is plain wrong. Look at this example, which is a office suite for windows, Linux and Wm, which uses the same code base for all 3.
(link)

Lastly the WM API is a subset of Win32 API. It does not require the kernel to be the same.

Like I said, its the iPhone thats devoid of desktop-class apps at present. I see you still live in hope of the great update in the sky that will finally make your iPhone a better, useful device.

BTW, it seems this nonsense will make you happy.
(link)
(link)

Look, its from 2001, when people still cared about command line tools!!!

@Surur,
“Is it hellishly bloated, and unable to run on cheap hardware? Yes, and that will lose it the smartphone battle.”

No, that demonstrates that WM is so fragmented and having to target such varied and low capability hardware that they can not push the envelope like the iPhone with a much higher base level OS. Next thing you’ll be telling me Windows 95 is far better than Windows XP because is not nearly as bloated.

“That you are still talking about the phone being wiped by powerloss tells me you have not used a WM phone since 2004, that issue is long solved.”

WM 5 was released mid-2005, not 2004 and I and many of my colleagues are still using WM devices that have this “feature” (my wife and I still use our O2 Minis although my O2 XDA IIs died last year after all the buttons stopped working and the thin glass screen cracked for the second time), so it’s definitely not long solved for many in the market. My point is that even up to version 4 of this operating system, Microsoft still had such an unbelievable flaw in their OS. We also use and support WM 5 & 6 on our campus and continue to suffer the lock-ups and slow downs that plagued the earlier devices.

In fact campus-wide we’ve given up trying to get our fleet of Windows Mobile devices to connect to our Enterprise WPA wifi network as WM still takes all sorts of gymnastics to get connected and even then is so unreliable even the campus telecom manager recommends staff use expensive 3G instead of the free wifi.

You mention Touch Flo, but neglect to mention it’s just a skin where if you go down a menu or two you’re back in horrible WM territory.

Hey, I used to be a Windows Mobile power user – I bought thousands of dollars worth of software for my personal Windows Mobile PDA phone including Destinator Turn-by-Turn GPS software and a Bluetooth GPS unit, the SPB utilities package to try and make up for the many shortcomings of the Windows Mobile interface, I’ve bought dozens of SciFi eBooks and read them on Mobipocket Reader and use Avante Go to subscribe to dozens of newspapers and tech journals and purchased the full PocketBible theological library suite and also loaded up the 1GB SD card with videos and music.

However, I ended up giving up on all of that and went back to my old Symbian P900 smartphone as at least it got the basics right. Since it died, I’ve reluctantly been marking time with an O2 Mini.

“Regarding the 2 years of free updates provided by Apple - yar one has been a complete bust- where is the bluetooth stack improvemnts, here is the A2DP, where is cut and paste, why cant you use the music on the device as a ring tone?”

Hey I agree Apple has yet to release some needed features, but I think you’d better wait one more week before criticising what Apple has or hasn’t yet done in those 2 years of updates. The iPhone has only been on the market for 1 year compared to the 8 or something years of WM and yet has made such a strong showing. Version 2.0 promises to fix a very large number of problem areas, and even in it’s current form the iPhone has demonstrated how usable it is as it gets the core functions right and shows the way a user interface should be done.

You also neglect to mention the poor upgrade record MS has had with WM over the years - have any success upgrading a WM 2003 device to 2003 SE? Or 2003 SE to WM 5? You had to buy totally new hardware each time. Even WM 5 to WM 6 is touch and go depending on OEM. In contrast, the iPhone v2.0 software is designed to run on v1.0 hardware.

“Regarding AJAX, I am running the wonderful Opera Mobile 9.5 on my Tilt, and you know, it smokes Safari Mobile. It supports more AJAX technologies, does bettr on Acid 2 and 3 and supports flash, and is much more stable than the crashtastic Mobile Safari. Thats just one advantage of an open platform.”

Of course with the release of the iPhone SDK and the imminent arrival of the appstore, we’re seeing enormous 3rd party developer interest in the iPhone/iPod Touch platform, far more than Windows Mobile has ever managed to generate. For example, every major games developer in the world (like EA, ID, PopCap, etc) has announced multiple titles for the iPhone because as John Carmack from ID says, the hardware and software is better than the Nintendo DS and the PSP - it’s basically at console level quality but easier to develop on. You definitely can’t say those sorts of things about WM.

As such, I agree the iPhone has it’s issues, but so does WM and unlike WM, the iPhone is starting from a rock solid, extremely usable, gorgeous, highly upgradeable base that has *earned* it the sort of good press it is getting. Windows Mobile has just disappointed