Surur

A Real iPhone Challenger - Barron's

Zak, I am sure you could excuse away each and every deficiency of the iPhone.

wmpoweruser.com/?p=204

BTW, here is an article that demonstrates how the iPhone browser is less standards compliant than the Opera Mobile 9.5 browser (not PIE) on the HTC Touch Diamond

A Real iPhone Challenger - Barron's

Brewster - Opera Mobile 9.5 is more standard compliant than Safari Mobile, and does better on both the Acid II and Acid III tests.

Regarding WM being dead, funny how the HTC Touch outsold the iPhone in Europe, isn't it.

A Real iPhone Challenger - Barron's

@ Tony
Can it run the iPhone apps ? No ? Too bad. Case closed.
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Thats a joke. It seems the iPhone is in need of WM apps, not the other way around, and that the presence of a full web browser with Ajax support, Youtube integration and a gesture-based interface and accelerometer rotation did not remain iPhone exclusive for very long. In fact with many cellphones getting visual voicemail it seems there is not much left that defines the iPhone.

Maybe you should stop answering your own questions.

A Real iPhone Challenger - Barron's

I did not know people were interested. I did not want to litter the site with links, but if you insist:

Mobile Firefox not for iPhone, Android
wmpoweruser.com/?p=139

In the words of Tristan Nitot, President of Mozilla Europe:

“For the iPhone, Apple’s license can not install software to have an interpreted language. But Firefox includes JavaScript, which makes it legally impossible to carry on the iPhone….For Android, Webkit is integrated into the OS, and only Java applications can run. And Firefox is not written in Java. So that’s why [Fennec will not run on Android]. However, in both cases, things may change in future, but it does not depend on Mozilla.”



iPhone SDK Rules Block Skype, Firefox, Java ...
apple.slashdot.org/art...

"Apple's iPhone software development kit is already drawing complaints due to the strict terms of service. Voice over IP apps like Skype that attempt to use the cellular data connection will be blocked. Competing web browsers Firefox and Opera are forbidden. Even Sun is now backpedaling on its recent announcement of a java port, noting that there are some legal issues. Critics are already comparing Apple's methods to Comcast's anti-net neutrality filtering, and Microsoft's Netscape-killing antitrust tactics. Could Apple face government regulators?"



Adobe bites its tongue after iPhone Flash jab
news.cnet.com/8301-107...

As my colleague Tom Krazit reported Tuesday afternoon, Jobs used the Apple shareholders' meeting to publicly dismiss the the full-blown PC Flash version as "too slow to be useful" on the iPhone. He then went on to describe the mobile version--Flash Lite--as "not capable of being used with the Web."




Now all of these apps may come to a jailbroken iPhone, but that is assumed to be a small minority of the market, but until Jobs loosens up his iron grip the iPhone will always be a worse platform to develop for.

A Real iPhone Challenger - Barron's

@JRoberts
Surur, every single thing you mentioned is not true

I'm not going paste a bunch of links, but while its technically easy to develop software for the iPhone, getting it published is another thing. The flash thing is a perfect example. All the other software suffers the same issue. Steve Jobs says No bandwidth hogs, no real time navigation, no multi-tasking, no VOIP over 3G, no interpreters etc etc.

How about doing some research before criticizing.

@Zach
With most media not coming from Apple, the market outside of the itunes lock-in is still wide open. These devices support wide range of codecs and drag and drop, meaning its compatible with people's increasing DRM free library, and support standards like A2DP that free people from the iPod dock lock-in.

@F.J Taylor
Just because you dont know the market does not negate the fact that HTC already outsells the iPhone, and will again in the next 12 months. HTC has huge carrier support, and all the carriers who did not get the iPhone will be knocking on their door.

A Real iPhone Challenger - Barron's

As long as phone vendors, such as HTC, keep releasing phones which are difficult build applications upon, they will be at risk.
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Thats pretty ironic, considering all the restrictions on the iPhone. Adobe do not know if they can do flash, styletap do not know if they can do a PalmOS emulator, Slingplayer do not know if they can sling over 3G, Skype know they are completely banned, Mozilla says they wont go near the iphone with a ten-foot pole etc etc.

To read about real developers and the problems they have on the iPhone, read here.

Pocket Informant on iPhone to be poorer than on WM
wmpoweruser.com/?p=183

A Real iPhone Challenger - Barron's

We have now seen the iPhone 3G, and its pretty boring, with no UI enhancements over the iPhone of old. If they tried to sell this one at the old price sales would have continued to lag. Apple was forced to lower prices - this indicates iPhone features no longer command a premium.

The HTC Touch Diamond however brings something brand new to the already burgeoning Windows Mobile market (20 million sales, 90% YoY growth) Its graphics 3D UI looks much better than even the iphone, its browser is better and more standards compliant, and it already has the library of must-have software and business manageability features that the iPhone is still aspiring to.

In short, HTC already sells more phones that Apple, and the Diamond is a very worthy contender that will limit Apple's supposed 45 million iPhone upside to much less than half that.