[Touch HD General] mackaby007:
iPhone discussion continued..

Continue here.......I could have not been more wrong.

We all know what great innovators and designers Apple are as a company, but I still didn’t give the OSx machines any credit or further thought…being a Windows man for well over 10 years. That was another mistake of mine.

Well after having owned many WM devices prior to now, I had always felt let down by the multimedia side of things. Why? For games??!! Don’t be silly friends. For later software development potential.

For anyone with any experience of graphic design or PC gaming, you will ALL undoubtedly be aware of how much a top class graphics card adds to the end user experience using MS Windows or Apple Mac’s O/S. So much of the User interface and also many applications other than games or movies can make great use of the dedicated graphics card on-board.

My thinking seems logical to me…..please correct me here if it doesn’t work that way. But shouldn’t the same be possible on the types of devices we use? Then why isn’t happening for WM and many other O/S’s? Well for the same reason why Dell was considered, maybe still is, the best standalone Pocket PC on the planet. It’s because of its Graphics accelerator!

Yes its graphics chip.. Intel something ….2700 is well known the world over by anyone who has been in the Windows Pocket PC game for some time, before being revamped and renamed to Windows Mobile 5.

Apple have put a lite version (of a very popular but now extinct gaming console) graphics chip, namely the Sega Dreamcast….still arguably equal to the PS2 in the graphics department, into the Apple iPhone.

This I know not if it was a deliberate act on Apples behalf, having thoroughly researched the market before starting development for the iPhone 6 years before going into manufacturing it. I don’t know but it seems logical that apple has done everything with forethought and has executed a brilliant plan and it is paying off big-time for them now.

That move alone makes a formidable and even perhaps unbeatable Media player/portable games console.

Then throw in years of research into previous, current browsing trends and the shortcomings of available browsers and develop one that works better than all of them.

Then you add the type of screen technology that changes the way we interact with touch screen altogether (Multi-Touch capacitive screen instead of resistive, stylus dependant (or long sharp nails/instrument) screen. Make it easier to use, even for big fingered people and eliminate this stupid stylus that only fits comfortably in children’s fingers and make the GUI not only incredibly easy/intuitive to use but ensure that a stylus would never be needed.

Then be sure to use a proper OS that supports up to 16 million colours to give justice to the 16 million colour screen. Then you will have a beautiful display complemented by a slightly above average resolution of 480x320 or visa-versa.

It makes WM limited 65,000 colur support look horrible in comparison, even though most HTC screens have a beautiful resolution of 640 x 480. WM is seriously let down in this department.

If this isn’t enough for you, have a 667Mhz CPU to power the device…still faster than any CPU found in all competitors….and you start to realise that the iphone is not only a remarkable device, but is capable of all that WM is (excluding missing hardware features i.e. good BT stack with A2DP support etc) bar some features that Apple has found a different way of doing things….better in my opinion too.

OK no MMS natively. So I got the 3rd party software just to shut some people up, but I NEVER use the damn thing!! Why would I want to use my phone contract minutes etc and have my photo downsized for MMS purposes when I can send it via click of a virtual button via e-mail, for free, to any part of the world, in full size? Don’t make any sense to me. I prefer Apples thinking on this one.

Multi-tasking! Ah yes WM can do this no problem and I salute it for that, but with 3rd party support so can Apple i-phone. But I don’t even like this feature. I always had Wisbar close all my apps on clicking ‘X’ or ‘Close’ on WM. Why? Because it was always an issue with any computer of any O/S that multitasking is memory hungry and ultimately, no matter how good it works, a computer or O/S based comms/media device will always perform better when working at less processes at the same time rather than more.

Anyway to cut a long story short, if you like technology enough to warrant the need or desire for a WM or any other smartphone based device, you owe it to yourself to give the iPhone (‘Jailbroken’ is a pre-requisite in this situation) a 3 month trial.

Why 3 months you ask?Because after 3 months I usually find myself looking at the supposedly next best thing out there, and for once I find myself happy with what I’ve got. The iphone 3G is gonna take some beating to dethrone it, but I welcome that once someone actually produces it as I love technology, NOT Apple. They just happen, IMHO, to be providing the best software/hardware integration I have come across to date.

All its shortcomings already have 3rd party software workarounds or there are other workarounds in place. Some may be more cumbersome than they seem worth, but if its important to you, you will usually do the one time process that is usually required to enable the functionality you rquire.

The beauty of it all is, apple were very smart here, there is the best integration of Mac/PC integration with the iPhone through iTunes and Applestore than anything else on the planet, as far as I klnow.:)

Yes you have to encode everything to sync videos onto the Apple (or dump the video files directly through USB and DiscAid to the dTunes (Jailbreak 3rd party application) app to view the vids through dTunes…no need for iTunes Syncing and dTunes allows you to save video clips and MP3’s and even supports torrent downloads (paid service though)). All this works brilliantly.

I repeat again, I am far from an Apple fanboy, but I am a fan of continuing technological development in this area and seemless and intuitive GUI/software integration, including Mac&Windows O/S compatibility.

I could go on but not in this thread. Instead I am going to give an idea (born out of inspiritaion from some of you guys) some more serious consideration before I start a new thread here on xda developers about a possible development team being put together to bring the iphone all missing software features that are considered ‘must haves’ in the WM areana.

Yes the iPhone is definitely lacking in some areas, but if it had 10% of the committed and intelligent members that contribute to xda developers, committed to the iPhone development scene, I think the iPhone would be the ultimate device…. until some other manufacturer is as creative as Apple and creates a new way of interacting with ones device…total voice or gesture control etc (that works easier and better than the iphone).

For now, as far as I’m concerned, the Iphone (3G in particular) is the best platform to be developing software for.

One last important point; have you noticed that ALL software made for the iphone, wether Jailbroken or Applestore apps, have this almost harmonic way of looking and working the same in basic functionality (obviously each app is entirely differnt). This really spurns on continued willingness to explore even more software (huge potential for developers as the iPhome community will live on for years due to this alone). Nothing seems ‘Too’ complicated to get to grips with because the SDK must (speculating here ) force devlopers to develop within the constraints of the look and feel of the Iphone GUI.

There is too much to discuss on this thread and sorry Kev for high-jacking your thread a little, but it has been eye opening and inspirational to me, as has been Eaglesteve’s mind-set and clarity of requirements, let alone the research he has put into the comparisons and features of both devices.

Fallenczar you da man. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and contributions. They and your suggested software links for the iPhone have been extremely helpful. Kev for starting this thread and contributing by sharing your experiences and knowledge, Veloaudi and others too..thanks all.

I’ll say this much more for now and no more lol.

I feel another project coming along….but this time with benefits not only for the end-user but to all involved with making it a success.

Remember this my fellow WM friends. WM has only become what it is today because of xda developer members and developers alike and it has taken years! We are talking about Iphone now, that hasn’t even had 2 years in circulation yet has been proven to be the world’s most successful phone in the smart-phone market as the ultimate device. Some even say it is, but I am more inclined to stick to the view that it has the potential to become this as opposed to being it already.

Nuff said. If anyone shares in my views of this, by all means PM me, respond here or even better email me at imack007@googlemail.com with your views, ideas, abilities or contributions (not interested in money right now – if you have any WM device and an iPhone or iPhone 3G and are a programmer/developer or are simply willing to help research/test software etc, that is all the contribution needed). Or if you’re savvy with WM and are definitely migrating to Iphone, your help could be invaluable.

Mack