[clue-talk] iPhone Madness

[Sean LeBlanc]

On 07-03 14:00, Nate Duehr wrote:
> Sean LeBlanc wrote:
 
> >It will be interesting to see how it plays out with the mp3 player market,
> >as well as the smartphone. I guess more competition is good, even if phones
> >are still locked down to a great extent in at least the U.S.
> 
> It's ALREADY playing out... plenty of MP3 players out there.

Yeah, I actually bought one of the first of them...in 1998. The Diamond Rio.
:) I think there was some model that preceded it, from some no-name company
in Korea, but I forget what that was. AFAIK, the RIO was the first from a
relatively known name, at least in the US. A whopping 32M + 16M extension,
IIRC.  I actually have 2, since my wife found one at yardsale for about $5 a
few years ago. 

> They knew they needed something different to drive more people to 
> iTunes, really.  The video iPod thing was okay, but no one really 
> watches movies on a 3" screen.  They might watch video "podcasts" but 
> there's no revenue in those for Apple.  Call me a "traditionalist" but I 
> never bought into (figuratively or literally) the video iPod.

Agreed. Even if one has copious time (teenagers and twenty-somethings
maybe), the only time that seems to make sense would be commutes on mass
transit. Otherwise, why not just watch a big screen?
 
> Engineers in the telco world won't be opening up the on-air or back-end 
> networks to really allow innovation -- it's not in their DNA.
> 
> I say this, having worked at a telco vendor of large carrier-class gear 
> now on and off for over 10 years, this year.  The Bell system may have 
> been "broken up" by Judge Greene, but the mentality still hasn't left 
> the biz.  Another generation or two of "attitude dilution", maybe.

Yup, I agree that I don't see it happening any time soon. Since the phone is
designed to interop with networks, I doubt that's so much of an issue,
though. The design of the thing screams about mid-1990's phone, though. But
a lot of people were quick to dismiss Linux in the early days, too, so I'll
give em a break. :)

Speaking of the Bell break up, I assume most people saw this when it aired.
Not to hard to follow, eh?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2004785759717366066&q=colbert+at%26t&total=72&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

-- 
Sean LeBlanc:seanleblanc at comcast.net  
http://sean-leblanc.blogspot.com/
It is better to live rich than to die rich. 
-Samuel Johnson