You're not getting an invite to WWDC 2008 if you keep this up

Apple's approach makes sense if you're an end user, they've made a damn stable phone and anything that has the potential to damage this should not be allowed. Has anyone else ever made a phone that is stable on day 1 without having to wait for a firmware update? For other companies firmware updates restore functionality, with Apple you add functionality.

All your rubbish about IM shows your inherent lack of understanding of the Apple way of doing things. Think about it logically, are you really likely to take a call and maintain an IM session at the same time? It's not a computer remember, it's a phone! If AOL is serious about developing applications for the iPhone then it must listen to Apple's guidlines very carefully and be more creative about bringing it's applications to this particular platform. Why can't AOL be more creative and do to IM what Apple did to SMS. There are many ways to develop some kind of hybrid IM application that quits during a call but maintains online status on the IM.

Dumb ass Linux developers

If all you dumb ass linux developers had even a little clue about developing apps that understand the fundamentals of human user interface then the mobile phone market wouldn't be in the code mess it's in now and Apple might not have entered the market. But now that it's proved it knows what it's doing why don't you just friggin develop applications like Apple says, you might learn something along the way......

Ahem

-- If all you dumb ass linux developers had even a little clue about developing apps that understand the fundamentals of human user interface then the mobile phone market wouldn't be in the code mess it's in now and Apple might not have entered the market.

If I'm not mistaken, you're an American. And in the North American market, Windows Mobile is the party to blame for horrid smartphone usability. Not Linux, not even mighty Symbian.

After all, it is almost entirely the WinCE market share being eaten by the iPhone, right?

"It's not a computer remember, it's a phone!" - lunacy

Adam

I refer you to your lunatic quote. Once a reader reaches that point, he or she can safely assume the remainder of your post will contain absolutely no insight.

A handheld device requires different ergonomics to conventional computing

No, I'm Brit, and dumb arse doesn't sound as good. At least Windows developers know they don't understand fundamental human interface issues but they know who to copy - linux developers are a different breed who don't know what constitutes a good interface because they've never used one.

Was being lazy in my explanation, meaning was that an iPhone isn't a device that you sit in front of like a PC or laptop, you don't need this multitaksing functionality on a hand-held device, you're only likely to be using it for one task at a time - instant messaging on a phone isn't like instant messaging sitting in front of a computer.

@Asam

"Think about it logically, are you really likely to take a call and maintain an IM session at the same time?"

Er, yes. Obviously you'd need a headset to make it practical, but have you never been stuck on a long conference call and got real work done by IM at the same time? Why is that any different on a phone from a "computer"? It's not like IM requires 1920x1200 screen res.

Your total lack of imagination shows why it's not a great idea to add stupid restrictions to APIs.

But I wonder whether there is a stupid technical (rather than stupid usability) reason behind this, like the IM application stealing CPU cycles from voice processing on the call.

John

AIM doesn't disconnect you...

...unless the IM app sends their server a disconnect message or their server cannot contact your app within a certain timeout, thus you can be using the IM app and when a phone call is received, the app should store the current status, then restore it when you launch the IM app again.

Your messages will still be there, the only thing is you won't receive any notification that someone is trying to talk to you - and why would you if you're using the phone? But then, if you look at how you use the iPhone.

If I were chatting away and received a phone call, the first thing I'd do after ending the call is to re-launch the IM app and carry on where I left off. The app would retrieve any messages you missed.

If you didn't re-launch the IM app after the call, that's just you being rude to your chat buddies.

@ Asam Bashir

Ho, ho, ho, what a laugh !

I think you "missed the point" by quite a large margin. Just because you want to keep an IM client running, doesn't mean that you are going to be interacting with it. The idea is that you can fire up the IM client and leave it running, and any time you are connected to a usable network, you will appear to be available to the network - and hence all your pals.

And of course, for 99% of the time that's all there is to it. Of course, someone could want to contact you at any time, so the client would be sat there in the background ready - and when someone 'calls', it can pop up and ask you if you want to chat.

If you can't leave an app running in the background, then you will have to remember to re-launch the IM app EVERY time you finish doing something else. If you don't then you will be unavailable.

And as for the first comment, while VoIP might not be usable on the current GSM network connection, it will be usable from many wireless hotspots (I wonder how many filter that out ?), and of course sooner or later the iPhone will get 3G and then it would be too late to put a VoIP client genie back in the bottle. AT&T, O2, et al, will NOT want to allow VoIP applications to eat into their call revenue - you only have to look at their T&Cs for data services to see that. It's nothing to do with usability (but 200kbps is more than enough bandwidth BTW), it's all to do with politics and market protection.

@Asam Bashir

"Think about it logically, are you really likely to take a call and maintain an IM session at the same time?"

Yes. I've done this many a time. I'll be chatting to the office on Skype IM, a phone call will come in, I'll take the call, and then GO BACK to my IM conversation without missing anything.

This is why Windows Mobile is still superior, in my opinion. Bang on about the interface as much as you like, it still works. And you're not restricted in the kind of apps you can have, where you can get them or when you're allowed to bloody run them. If I want to open a web browser, IM session and a Word document (not that I like to use Word - OOo haven't made it to mobile yet), and then take a phone call, I ruddy well can. No worries, no bother, no fuss.

Windows Mobile might not have the most inspired interface, but people bang on and on and on about it, when in fact the only real thing they've got against it is that it's a plain old boring start menu, and it's not shiny, flash, or animated. Know what? I just don't care. I really don't. The start menu works on XP Pro for me, it works under KDE on Debian/Kubuntu for me, and it works on my mobile too.

Given the choice between shiny and useful, I'll take useful every time.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to tune my sax/guitar using the app I installed on my Athena.

Re:

"Has anyone else ever made a phone that is stable on day 1 without having to wait for a firmware update"

Yes, actually. Almost everyone barring possibly those that use Windows Mobile.

The vast majority of phones, smart or not, run stably with few or no problems.

Chad seems to have a serious lack of knowledge of VOIP in general - the edge network is easily fast enough to support VOIP, even if signal is pretty poor.

Asam seems to be entirely delusional too, "all you dumb ass linux developers" is clearly a sensible critisim to be making. After all, I'm sure you could write Xorg yourself if you wanted to, you just have better things to do, right? And Linux developers are clearly relevent to an iPhone SDK...

The level of Apple fanboyism groweth mightily...

FWIW, I agree with Chris. Once some nice friendly coder has managed to circumvent the iTunes store requirement, we will be able to get much less restriced apps onto the iPhone. Although sadly I doubt many companies would choose this route, even if it existed, so this may not get us very far in real terms.

EDGE and VOIP

Everyone talks about EDGE at 200k/sec being fast enough for VOIP, they forget that it's an asymmetric protocol which is lucky to hit 64k/sec when sending data. There's also a degree of contention between users in the same cell. The result is that it's unlikely that you'll get a useable VOIP connection over it, and multiple users will cause the quality to go down hill fast.

Stop me if I'm wrong, but didn't Apple have an AIM developer at the SDK launch saying how great the iPhone was to program? On top of that Steve Jobs said that VOIP was OK, providing you ran it over WiFi. What's all the shouting about?

IM

i wonder how many you that are so addicted to your IM chats that you cannot bare to drop offline for the 5 minutes it takes to make a phone call, are the same ones that routinely bash facebook users for a similar addicition

the line about about "getting real work done via IM"

is it REALLY work, or just chatting with your pals, eh? because, surely if it's important and serious work, and email would be better, as it's then written and you can retrieve it easily later. or if it's really THAT important or urgent, you could, you know, call the person on your phone to explain the problem / resolve the issue / etc

Question for Ty

Out of interest, which N95 Browser are you comparing Safari to?

Opera, Opera Mini, Nokia's Webkit browser or A.N.Other browser?

No Apps in the Background?

This is very strange, and I'm sure there must be exceptions. The browser is one as Mr Fanboi has pointed out. But what about multimedia? I have to close my (third party) music player if a call comes in? I'm halfway through writing an email and have to quickly save it half-finished if I get a call? I'm working on a spreadsheet in QuickOffice and have to save what I'm doing to take the call? Or I'm using SportsTracker on a jog but have to turn it off and lose my data? What if I'm halfway through a SyncML session? Or using SatNav in a City I don't know? Lengthy podcast downloads have to stop? Even simple apps you might use on holiday, like a currency converter or phrasebook? All close down and have to be manually started up again? What about games? I've just reached my highest level ever on SystemRush but it suddenly closes down as a call comes in? No, I'm the iBling's biggest critic, but I think there must be some misunderstanding here, Apple aren't that stupid.

No VoIP either? Oh dear, you'll be telling me next it doesn't have a SIP stack.

Numpties

Seems like a lot of folks - Jobs included - simply don't understand how software works, and the fact that there *really* might be two things happening at once. And in these OO days, one app should handle one feature.

So say we want to make a call. We launch the call app. We want to look up a phone book entry, so we need to put the call app on hold for a bit while we launch the phone book app - that's fine. Then select an entry, the phone book app reverts control back to the call app, we ring the number, and everything's going fine.

Now whilst we're on the phone, someone else rings us. Most phones these days support call waiting - you'd certainly expect a high-end phone to do it. Now we're in a call with someone else, but we have a number from the call waiting alert, and we'd like to look that up with the phone book app. But we can't, because we're in a call and we can't stop the call app.

Or suppose an SMS arrives while we're on the phone. Can we read the SMS and continue our phone call? Nope. Do we even get notification that the SMS has arrived? No, because it's the SMS app that'll pop up the notification, and the SMS app is blocked by the call.

There is a word for this design, and the word is "shite". Steve Jobs might want to investigate this thing called an "operating system" instead. It was invented a little while back, but it seems like the iPhone people have yet to discover it.

Jesus Phone ???

Hi, this is a inappropiate naming of the IPhone, it shows a total disrespect for Jesus Christ. You offending half of the people of the USA.

@ Doug

Nice try, but I think I saw you down the pub earlier.

What I'd be curious to see...

...is a VOIP over wifi product and - since it doesn't support bluetooth - a dockable headset for the iPod Touch.

If I'm reading all of this right and the iPhone/Touch can connect to a network over wifi, and VOIP over wifi apps will be permitted for the phone, then this could bypass AT&T altogether for anyone who has a Touch and is regularly near a wireless access point...

...or am I completely off here?

@Alan & Sarah

Well, you don't *have* to use a smartphone for push email. I use my N95 to watch live NASA TV in bed. Now how sad is that?

(Attn Reg: I feel a competition coming on. Nominations for the saddest use of a smartphone. Crackberry addiction is obviously top, but we could have second, third, fourth...)

Dumb ass El Reg articles call for dumb ass comments....

If you want a friggin open system go develop for Android or JavaFX and make your perfect crackberry app - An iPhone is a unique platform that requires unique creative apps. If you can't let go of your old ways then stick to them, there are plenty of real Mac developers out there getting on with the business of making really great iPhone apps.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=No1MxAnHuJM

There are thousands of ways of making an IM that can work under conditions Apple has stated, AOL with it's network could easily make some changes so for example if you're busy with a call your IMs get relayed via the SMS network or stored on the server accessible by a GUI archive on client-side app.

I've had all kinds of devices from PDAs to mobile phones and non has satisfied, they've been a compromise. I don't want to do things on an iPhone that I can do better on my laptop. I want to do things on my iPhone that I've not done on any other device...

@jai IM

"i wonder how many you that are so addicted to your IM chats that you cannot bare to drop offline for the 5 minutes it takes to make a phone call, are the same ones that routinely bash facebook users for a similar addicition

the line about about "getting real work done via IM"

is it REALLY work, or just chatting with your pals, eh? because, surely if it's important and serious work, and email would be better"

This is absurd. Even before getting to the the philosophical point of "can u get real work done in IM" (which u can, I do, and many times it's a helluva lot faster than email, cause they _do_ have different purposes), the bottom line is, what kind of an advance in mobile devices is that where u can not run an application in the background? Am I the only one that see this as ridiculous?

Apple thinking about security as well

The limit on active/standby applications might have some security reasons, it would be quite easy to make a background app that jacks the audio from phone calls and sends them to some remote server - Apple is thinking about all these issues in addition to making a very stable platform, security is a high priority for iPhone, just as it has always been on a Mac....

@Doug

Y'know, Doug, it's wankers like you speaking for "half of the US" that has made the US the laughing stock of the world. Next time you're offended, how about speaking for yourself instead of pretending you're the duly elected spokesperson for over 150 million people.

I'm an American, and I love the phrase "Jesus phone". Get bent.

@Asam

http://youtube.com/watch?v=No1MxAnHuJM

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

Shit. You're serious, aren't you?