oh well, might as well continue this little thread... i hope everyone realizes that michael and i don't really disagree as much as all this rhetoric seems. *** michael said:
However, if you buy one like that AFTER doing homework, that's between you and your psychiatrist.
i never bought one of the steaming pile of crap phones... not to do web-browsing, anyway. i just went without web.
Don't forget I said don't get one without wifi.
how could i forget it when you repeat it so frequently? :+) but, as i said, i just went without the web on my phone. and so did tens of millions of other people. my point...
The phone in question here has an unlimited data plan for some $35 a month, seems reasonable to me. Then again, I'm not sure that plan is still available, other than grandfathered in.
well, your ability to sniff out bargains is well-documented. but others of us are not blessed with that particular gift... (i was kissed by the queen angel of parking spaces myself.)
Only the millions you left out of your research samples.
i granted you _one_ million, and even that was stretching it.
Don't you ever listen??? I've said for ages, "Don't buy a cellphone without wifi!"
even if i only listened 10% of the time (and i listen a lot more), i would have heard you say that, since you've said it for ages...
Still, even as a phone, if you use wifi for data, no charges.
the experience wasn't worth it! even if the bandwidth was free!
Wake up!!!
i'm as awake as i'm gonna be at this time of night... :+)
Sites? Were we talking about sites? I thot we were talking about phones!
oh, ok, i see where we had our disconnect. i was talking about "cell-phone optimized websites", yes, since for many phones, that was the only way they could adequately access the web, via sites that had been dumbed down to the point where they were simple text-menus only. those dumbed-down sites were light on bandwidth and didn't need any processing power. of course, they weren't the "real" web, but they were the best those phones could do. let me ask a question. for your current phone, the one you are talking about with the $35/month unlimited data plan, and wifi, can you access the front page of the n.y. times site? do you see all of the pictures? can you click on all the links? and if you can, how long does it take that front page to load? can you get wikipedia? or are you shunted to an "alternative" version which has been dumbed-down for cell-phone access?
An interesting POV. I'm not sure it's got any factual backing, but interesting. What about AT&T? Or are you counting them?
it's not a "p.o.v.". it's how the history went down, michael. steve wanted verizon, because they were acknowledged as "best". but verizon turned him down flat, flat as a pancake. then he tried sprint, but they wouldn't give him a deal either. so at&t was his only other option. they were so desperate, for any business, that they basically couldn't turn him down. of course, all of us users have been totally dissatisfied with at&t, because they haven't been able to get their act together, despite the huge influx of business (and respect) from iphone. steve hung with them for quite a while, longer than he should, but the word on the street is that their exclusivity is now gone.
Actually, all The Billionaire Boys Club are betting against you. As you may recall, I starting predicting years and years ago, when cellphones first reached 50% saturation levels, that the new wave of cellphones would be more wild new features. . . .
i'm still waiting. but i'm afraid that day is still off in the future. these carrier companies are so used to having captive "customers" that they don't really even _know_ how to engage in competition, and they all understand that as long as their collusion remains impossible to prove directly, they can milk all of their cash cows. for years and years, they played the "minutes" game with us, and even now, they think it's a big deal to knock $30 off their $99 plan for unlimited _voice_ for a month. but that's still a whopping $69.
So who else is going to be allowed to provide for iPhones???
the rumor-mill says verizon will get the iphone in addition to at&t. i'm guessing half (or more) of the people who have suffered through the at&t exclusivity period will switch to verizon as soon as they can.
Didn't I use the plural?
no, you said "million", for that phone you own.
Are iPhones up to 5% of cellphones yet? I think not [and vanished in a puff of greasy black smoke!] Actually, I would be surprised if even much over half that!
another big disconnect between us here... because certainly the percentage of _cellphones_ doesn't matter, not if we're throwing dumb-phones into the mix. i'm sure we'll get the updated figures during apple's press conference wednesday, but i think the iphone has about 40% of the smart-phone market today in the countries where it has been available for a while... even more important, the trend-lines show that it's still surging, while all the other smart-phones are holding steady or dropping. but the really startling statistic is that 80% of smart-phone bandwidth is being generated by iphone users, meaning they use their phones to navigate the web _twice_ as much as owners of other smart-phones...
It's cute. . .no one says not.
oh please. spare yourself the indignity of backhanded "compliments". the iphone is a lot more than "cute". it has revolutionized the future.
It's just not even 5% of the market, maybe half that. . . .
only if you define "market" in a completely nonsensical way. the iphone isn't competing against giveaway dumb-phones.
Seems to be following the Mac statistics.
maybe you need to brush up on those statistics as well. mac has 90% of the market for machines costing $1000+. the only people buying p.c. hardware these days are the people who have very little use for a _real_ computer... they just want to check their e-mail and surf the web, and maybe watch t.v. or a movie... and guess what? that's exactly what apple's itablet is gonna let them do. (jobs owns pixar, of course, and is the biggest shareholder in disney, so that's the movie angle. but disney also owns a.b.c., so jobs has a direct interest in the future of t.v. too, and that's why movie/t.v. will be the big thrust of the itablet. in addition to bridging the gap between iphone and mac air.)
Now iPods, that a different thing. . .heaven knows why, since there are SO many MP3 players working so well.
"heaven knows why"? you really think it's a big mystery? it's no mystery at all. but i explained all of that in my _original_reply_ to walter, which i will send tomorrow. in a nutshell here now, though, what is interesting is how apple cannibalized its own ipod line with the touch, which is essentially the iphone without the phone part (so it boils down to the same form-factor as your phone, michael, with wifi access but with no phone capability.) that ipod touch -- with its dependence on wifi -- broke free from the tyranny of the 2-year carrier-contract, and basically puts the web in your pocket without access costs. now i would've thought this would be a non-starter, since i'm not willing to carry around a touch _and_ a phone, but lots of people apparently _are_ willing to do exactly that, and apple hooked in those people, and that's pretty cool.
You just haven't see all the Euro-phones on the streets. . . .
it's not hard for me to imagine a world where _everyone_ is carrying around the web in their pocket all of the time... i've had that idea for about 30 years now, which i concede doesn't match the 50 years that you've got under your belt, but i think it's still a long-enough time to nurture a dream. -bowerbird