# Google Unveils iPhone 'Killer'



## gopi_vbboy (Jun 5, 2008)

> NEW YORK —  Will the Google phone have you hanging up your iPhone?
> 
> Google unveiled the software for its much-anticipated new phone last week, and it's loaded with fun features, including an unlocking tool that allows users to create a secret shape that must be drawn on the screen.
> 
> ...




Source:

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[URL="*www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,361275,00.html"]*www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,361275,00.html[/URL]
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Hmm...

i Think Google phone gonna rule the mobile internet....


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## bikdel (Jun 5, 2008)

I am postponing my celkphone purchase till android phones hits the shelves.


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## gopi_vbboy (Jun 5, 2008)

bikdel said:


> I am postponing my celkphone purchase till android phones hits the shelves.



ahh...u r a google fan i suppose


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## desiibond (Jun 5, 2008)

Guys, please stop this iphone killer things. For gods sake, iphone has 0.16% market share.

YOu know what real iphone killers are. It's Nokia 6233, SE K790i ...


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## MetalheadGautham (Jun 5, 2008)

desiibond said:


> Guys, please stop this iphone killer things. For gods sake, iphone has 0.16% market share.
> 
> YOu know what real iphone killers are. It's Nokia 6233, SE K790i ...


+1

But iPhone is the most over hyped phone, and ANDROID is set to beat that. It has community support, plus it has the backing of Google. So its set to cause a huuuuuuge bang indeed when it comes, and we can only wait for it to become stable and be released to OEMs.


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## Pat (Jun 5, 2008)

MetalheadGautham said:


> +1
> 
> But iPhone is the most over hyped phone, and ANDROID is set to beat that. It has community support, plus it has the backing of Google. So its set to cause a huuuuuuge bang indeed when it comes, and we can only wait for it to become stable and be released to OEMs.



iphone does not have community support ?  Isnt Apple a reputed brand ?


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## MetalheadGautham (Jun 5, 2008)

Pat said:


> iphone does not have community support ?  Isnt Apple a reputed brand ?


community support means community support.
I am talking of a huge userbase willing to hack the system to the core and developing community apps.
As in Open Source.


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## desiibond (Jun 5, 2008)

or a symbian where you get hundreds of apps for each task


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## praka123 (Jun 5, 2008)

symbian got split with uiq and all.also they are not open


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## desiibond (Jun 5, 2008)

hehe. they aren't open but they have a better and bigger base. Atleast they provide SDK to develop application. 

If I stick to Open source, I will not be able to even buy a phone coz none of the phone manufacturers are providing source code of their phones OS (may be few chinese provides this).


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## praka123 (Jun 5, 2008)

N800


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## Pat (Jun 5, 2008)

MetalheadGautham said:


> community support means community support.
> I am talking of a huge userbase willing to hack the system to the core and developing community apps.



Isnt that true for the iphone as well ? Ever been to hackint0sh forums ?


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## desiibond (Jun 5, 2008)

praka123 said:


> N800


 
what made you think that N800 is a phone??



Pat said:


> Isnt that true for the iphone as well ? Ever been to hackint0sh forums ?


 
getjar.com
mobile9.net

Compare the above with iphone app download sites. You will know the difference.


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## praka123 (Jun 5, 2008)

it is mobile9.com  thx for that.


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## Pat (Jun 5, 2008)

desiibond said:


> getjar.com
> mobile9.net
> 
> Compare the above with iphone app download sites. You will know the difference.



Wow..Thats a cool comparison..iphone vs all other platforms  
Ok I agree the software library for symbian or wm is bigger than iphones, but how long has iphone been there ? 
Also even more importantly the discussion was about a community that hacks the OS/phone to the core and makes community apps available, which is true also in case of iphones, hence your comment in invalid!


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## sakumar79 (Jun 5, 2008)

^^^ Besides, I think that desiibond and Gautam are missing the point that when people talk about iphone killers, they are not alluding to the iphone's features/specs (which may not be that great compared to other phones in its price range) but to its UI and ease of use...

Arun


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## x3060 (Jun 5, 2008)

lets just hope the best for google , cause whatever they touch turns to good...i am confident about this one...


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## swordfish (Jun 5, 2008)

Man there are so many iphone killers are in market nw.. why police is not arresting them!!


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## desiibond (Jun 6, 2008)

sakumar79 said:


> ^^^ Besides, I think that desiibond and Gautam are missing the point that when people talk about iphone killers, they are not alluding to the iphone's features/specs (which may not be that great compared to other phones in its price range) but to its UI and ease of use...
> 
> Arun


 
dude. The one who rules the market is the one who has the market share and not the one who has the coolest UI. A phone becomes a hit not just by look but by being a VFM phone. So, you don't need to have a 30k phone to kill another 30k phone. All you need is something that does everything and costs nothing, like N73, K810, 6233, E61i, P1i. These are the phones that are setting benchmarks and not the phones that have cool UI and nothing else.

It doesn't matter when a phone is out. You don't term it as market leader because of the thought that it may have huge app support in the future. Corporates live in reality and fanboys live in dreams.


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## gopi_vbboy (Jun 6, 2008)

With some good innovation in mobile internet...lets hope google brings something good.....google rules the net...


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## sakumar79 (Jun 6, 2008)

@desiibond, the term iphone-killer has nothing to do with vfm and features or with being a market leader... Personally I would never buy the iphone since it is not vfm and its basic features of call clarity,etc are not that great ... But what people are now trying to is outdo the iphone in the UI... That is why people are trying to call these phone as iphone-killer.... The talk is only related to the UI and not to the features...

Arun


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## dheeraj_kumar (Jun 6, 2008)

Interesting, this is. Trying to join the mobile OS war too? I mean, we have Sony's own, and Symbian, and linux...


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## goobimama (Jun 7, 2008)

I really liked that compass view of the Google streetview thing. Seems really trippy.


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## aryayush (Jun 8, 2008)

desiibond said:


> A phone becomes a hit not just by look but by being a VFM phone. So, you don't need to have a 30k phone to kill another 30k phone. All you need is something that does everything and costs nothing


Typical cheap Indian mentality. Number of features and price are the only two benchmarks you guys use to judge products. The quality of said features is not even a consideration, as is clearly evident by your unabashedly frank statement.

In India, VFM = cheap. When I said this to iMav a few days ago, he disagreed with me. Here’s solid proof.

-------------

Also, some of you are talking about Android having a large community and user base. Which planet are you living on? Android phones haven’t even been released yet and it does not have a single user.

It’s just software right now, albeit one that does sound promising.

--------------

When you talk about the iPhone, none of you seem to be taking into consideration the fact that the App Store is set to launch within the next few days, an event that will trigger an onslaught of high quality, authorised third party applications for the device that will elevate its usefulness and potential beyond anything you’ve come to expect from mobile phones, and even handheld devices in general. Wait and watch, there’s a revolution in the making in Cupertino right now.


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## chandru.in (Jun 8, 2008)

Quality in iPhone?  Well any platform or device which is so damn closed will be secure, stable and have least problems.

That's exactly how Apple ensures quality on desktop too.  Do not allow users to try non-apple hardware!  If alone Apple allowed Mac OS X to run on any PC hardware and allow third party apps on iPhone without jails like app store, then we'll see how Mac OS X would suffer from driver problems and how many malware would appear for iPhone.  Waiting for that day!!


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## preshit.net (Jun 8, 2008)

And how is that a bad thing ? By keeping it tied to the hardware, they're saving the user from any kind of hassle or headaches.

And if we go by your theory, then Linux, which is so easily customizable would have had millions of malware by now, right ? right ?

Oh, and you most certainly will have to keep waiting for that day.

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And how exactly is the App store a jail ? It's only the security at the entrance.
The developer can make the app in any way he wants. He can either set the price for the app, or give it away for free. The user on the other hand can find all apps in one single place, neatly categorized. I don't think a Jail is something like this.


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## chandru.in (Jun 8, 2008)

Well that was not exactly meant to slander Apple.  The tying to hardware is a double-edged sword.  But claiming that only iPhone would have quality and Android based phone (possibly VFM) may not have it doesn't make sense.



aryayush said:


> Typical cheap Indian mentality. Number of features and price are the only two benchmarks you guys use to judge products. The quality of said features is not even a consideration, as is clearly evident by your unabashedly frank statement.
> 
> In India, VFM = cheap. When I said this to iMav a few days ago, he disagreed with me. Here’s solid proof.



Also, the biggest innovation in iPhone is the UI (saying in positive tone) otherwise it is not anything revolutionary.  Also, I mentioned malware because avoiding malware was stated as the reason for not allowing third-party apps initially.  Then they gave up to market pressure and gave an SDK but to distribute it still developers need to go through Apple's app store.

It is not exactly a Jail but the developers are eternally at the mercy of Apple when creating iPhone apps.  30% revenue taken as tax by Apple for so called upkeeping.  If they let developers distribute apps without app store, Developers need not pay this tax.

An open platform is very very different from open-source.  And whether you like it or not, Windows is an open platform.  But the Mac OS X on iPhone is not at all an open platform.

Well I don't mind I have open-source with me anyway.


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## goobimama (Jun 8, 2008)

Can you yourself understand what you have said? I sure can't figure it out.


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## chandru.in (Jun 8, 2008)

Please close Photoshop and fire-up iWrite to do some word processing.  

Anyway to simplify things the Apple way,


Claiming that VFM phones (possibly Android based in future) will somehow be of lower quality than iPhone (as Aryayush did) is baseless
The Mac OS X in iPhone is far far less of an open platform than even Windows Mobile (not even close to Android or openMoko).
Developers have to eternally pay 30% tax to Apple when creating iPhone apps and distributing them through app store.


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## goobimama (Jun 8, 2008)

1. Aayush didn't say the Android platform will be of lower quality than the iPhone. He merely stated that as of now, it is not even a platform. He also went on to talk about how awesome the iPhone platform is going to be soon. 
2. True that. And with reasons you mentioned in your first post, that is, to prevent malware and ultimately — at least in Apple's and my opinion — a smoother environment for the customer.
3. Well they do have bandwidth concerns and such. I'm not sure whether 30% is good or bad. Also, if a developer makes an app for free, there is no charge.


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## iMav (Jun 8, 2008)

chandru.in said:


> Quality in iPhone?  Well any platform or device which is so damn closed will be secure, stable and have least problems.


In other words, Linux is crap  it is the opposite of everything you alleged against the iPhone &OS X.


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## FilledVoid (Jun 8, 2008)

Yay this thread is fun. I mean comparing the a phone with a near to Nil customer base (ok exaggeration there ) with a phone that hasn't been released.  

And by the way. 



> In India, VFM = cheap. When I said this to iMav a few days ago, he disagreed with me. Here’s solid proof.



How in the world does VFM mean cheap? Value for money means basically getting the best benefit out of your investment.


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## iMav (Jun 8, 2008)

hmmm, I said the same in another thread but Aayush feels otherwise.


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## iNFiNiTE (Jun 8, 2008)

FilledVoid said:


> Yay this thread is fun. I mean comparing the a phone with a near to Nil (ok exaggeration there ) with a phone that hasn't been released.





Guess all iPhone/Apple fanboys are taking offense on the 'killer' tag.


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## praka123 (Jun 8, 2008)

typical Indian cheap mentality?  I think he should shift ASAP to cupertino.


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## chandru.in (Jun 8, 2008)

goobimama said:


> 1. Aayush didn't say the Android platform will be of lower quality than the iPhone. He merely stated that as of now, it is not even a platform. He also went on to talk about how awesome the iPhone platform is going to be soon.
> 2. True that. And with reasons you mentioned in your first post, that is, to prevent malware and ultimately — at least in Apple's and my opinion — a smoother environment for the customer.
> 3. Well they do have bandwidth concerns and such. I'm not sure whether 30% is good or bad. Also, if a developer makes an app for free, there is no charge.





His statement is just being interpreted differently by us.
That is exactly what I told in my first post about iPhone being very secure as it is highly closed and preshit argued it.  Apple themself have said this third party app restriction is to avoid malware.
Though I'm not at all even remotely fond of Microsoft, there is one thing which they got right and Apple has always been missing.  It is the famous monkey dance performed by Ballmer.  For any platform's success third party developers are critical.  Once the initial hype behind iPhone dies out, it will be still an artist and style icons' phone.  When mobiles become our primary computing device in future the value offered to developers by the platform will raise again.


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## aryayush (Jun 8, 2008)

FilledVoid said:


> How in the world does VFM mean cheap? Value for money means basically getting the best benefit out of your investment.


Yeah, that’s what it’s supposed to mean, of course. But as you could clearly see in the statement I quoted back there, the poster had only two parameters for judging anything—number of features and price. He said that anything that offers the maximum number of features at “no price” is VFM.

And that’s the general sentiment shared by 90% of Indian citizens, even though they may deny it on the face of it. Quality is never paid heed to and if some company charges more for a product of clearly superior quality, it’s termed as not being VFM.

I’m not just talking about Apple here either. It’s prevalent across all industries and brands in the Indian market.

As for praka, who said I should shift to Cupertino, let me tell you that I have no intention to, even though I admire a lot of things about the U.S.A.. I would much rather stay in my country and live with its flaws than run away to another one that has a different set of qualities which might be more to my liking. However, there is no shame in admitting our flaws and I don’t mind voicing out my opinion, against India and Indians, when I feel the need to.



chandru.in said:


> His statement is just being interpreted differently by us.
> That is exactly what I told in my first post about iPhone being very secure as it is highly closed and preshit argued it.  Apple themself have said this third party app restriction is to avoid malware.
> Though I'm not at all even remotely fond of Microsoft, there is one thing which they got right and Apple has always been missing.  It is the famous monkey dance performed by Ballmer.  For any platform's success third party developers are critical.  Once the initial hype behind iPhone dies out, it will be still an artist and style icons' phone.  When mobiles become our primary computing device in future the value offered to developers by the platform will raise again.


Trust me, chandru, you have very little idea about the Apple culture. This WWDC is the first one ever to be completely houseful. I think that’s a pretty good indication of how developers feel about the company and its OS X platform. Tomorrow, you’ll see iPhone applications and games that will blow you away and, secretly, you’ll be marveling at the capabilities of the platform. Publicly, however, you’ll still try to demean the company and its inherently closed nature, as if there is anything wrong with it.

The company chose to follow a policy, a closed one, and it’s clearly working—it’s gaining reputation and market share by leaps and bounds, has the most loyal customers across all industries and brands, gets front page press coverage when they mow their backyard and is earning dough by the truckloads. They top every customer satisfaction survey by huge margins. Clearly, it’s working.

So, why fix it if it ain’t broke?


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## chandru.in (Jun 8, 2008)

aryayush said:


> Tomorrow, you’ll see iPhone applications and games that will blow you away and, secretly, you’ll be marveling at the capabilities of the platform. Publicly, however, you’ll still try to demean the company and its inherently closed nature, as if there is anything wrong with it.
> 
> The company chose to follow a policy, a closed one, and it’s clearly working—it’s gaining reputation and market share by leaps and bounds, has the most loyal customers across all industries and brands, gets front page press coverage when they mow their backyard and is earning dough by the truckloads. They top every customer satisfaction survey by huge margins. Clearly, it’s working.
> 
> So, why fix it if it ain’t broke?



Well if you remember the History of Apple (not just the past few years), it is a company whose market share has fallen from more than 90% (Apple II and the first Macs) of personal computing to less than 10% (combining Mac and iPhone) today.  And all that happened only because back then and even today Apple is fully closed but the IBM PC was and is an open-standard.  Yes it is making a come back with its cool factor.  But even back then it was all about the cool factor.  But I would not question the technical power of Mac OS X after all the kernel, the web rendering engine are all taken from open-source and made into a proprietary package.

Well anyway, let the market forces decide.  Unlike the PC market there has been no monopoly (so far) in mobile market.  So let's wait and watch.


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## aryayush (Jun 8, 2008)

chandru.in said:


> Well if you remember the History of Apple (not just the past few years), it is a company whose market share has fallen from more than 90% (Apple II and the first Macs) of personal computing to less than 10% (combining Mac and iPhone) today.


No, the maximum market share Apple ever enjoyed was 11%.



chandru.in said:


> And all that happened only because back then and even today Apple is fully closed but the IBM PC was and is an open-standard.


No, that was never the reason. The reasons were many, not the least of which was the estrangement between Steve Jobs and John Sculley, the then CEO of Apple, and the former’s resultant expulsion from the company.

Ever since Steve Jobs has returned, he has resurrected the company and brought back its glory days. Apple may have a lower market share in the computer market than it once enjoyed, but the company is in much better shape than it ever has been before.

In fact, the one time Apple allowed Mac OS X to be legally installed on non-Mac computers, it nearly drove the company to bankruptcy. The first few things Steve Jobs did that ultimately saved the company were:
1. Put an end to the clones and reintegrate Mac OS X exclusively with Apple hardware;
2. Simplify the product line;
3. Bring back the emphasis on good design;
4. Get out of the lower-end market; and
5. Launch something spectacular—the first iMac.


Please do not make any false assumptions. After having read three books on Apple’s history, I like to think that I’m quite familiar with the company’s past.


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## FilledVoid (Jun 8, 2008)

> Yeah, that’s what it’s supposed to mean, of course. But as you could clearly see in the statement I quoted back there, the poster had only two parameters for judging anything—number of features and price. He said that anything that offers the maximum number of features at “no price” is VFM.



Well the most features for a comparatively lesser price is usually considered as VFM. 



> And that’s the general sentiment shared by 90% of Indian citizens, even though they may deny it on the face of it. Quality is never paid heed to and if some company charges more for a product of clearly superior quality, it’s termed as not being VFM.



That is a huge exaggeration. Most people don't mind shelling out money for stuff which they classify as superior and feature rich. I'm sure that quality is taken well in account of before most educated people make decisions. 



> I’m not just talking about Apple here either. It’s prevalent across all industries and brands in the Indian market.


I'm not talking about Apple. My post that this thread is kind of odd still stands. But what I sad about VFM is how I would and I believe a majority of people would define it. 



> As for praka, who said I should shift to Cupertino, let me tell you that I have no intention to, even though I admire a lot of things about the U.S.A.. I would much rather stay in my country and live with its flaws than run away to another one that has a different set of qualities which might be more to my liking. However, there is no shame in admitting our flaws and I don’t mind voicing out my opinion, against India and Indians, when I feel the need to.



Bravo , May the force be with you!


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## SunnyChahal (Jun 8, 2008)

Guys tell me WTF is WWDC!


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## aryayush (Jun 8, 2008)

Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference is one of the two major annual events for the company. Steve Jobs will give a two-hour-long speech which will be live-blogged by several websites and there will be some major announcements.

It kicks off at 10:30 p.m. tomorrow night and we’ll be discussing about it on the forums (in the Apple thread) and probably in some chat room. Feel free to join us; it’s a load of fun.


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## SunnyChahal (Jun 8, 2008)

Ahh!I hate Steve Jobs.He is worse than Bill Gates 
And who will listen to his 2 hour long bhaashan?


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## aryayush (Jun 8, 2008)

LOL! You’re in for a surprise.


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## chandru.in (Jun 8, 2008)

Apple owned 11% of all computing may be but it was the single ruler of PC world initially.

I'd kinda agree Sunny1211993.  Bill Gates and team just copy others ideas but at least implement them on their own.

Apple uses others' code and makes a super proprietary product out of it giving back nothing.  Of course, the choice of license made by the developers of original product has to be blamed too.  Examples, BSD's kernel, DTrace (in leopard).  Webkit they did copy but contribute back a bit too.

The only place Apple innovates really well (hats off to them for that) is the UI.  Otherwise, they have nothing even close to being called innovation.  

Thank God there is GPL for saving Linux otherwise we can definitely see Mac OS XI which would use a proprietary form of the Linux kernel.


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## aryayush (Jun 8, 2008)

They contribute _“a bit”_ back to WebKit?

Riiight.

What’s the opposite of hyperbole?


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## SunnyChahal (Jun 8, 2008)

@Chandru,Does OS X use BSD's kernel?I don't think so.Are you sure mach kernel is derived from BSD?


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## chandru.in (Jun 8, 2008)

OMG!!

It is very much.  Mac OS X kernel is a direct BSD derivative.  Otherwise do you think aryayush would have spared me for saying that?  

But the UI (one place where Apple is good at) was developed by the company started by Steve Jobs after he was fired from Apple.  Then when he returned, the UI was merged with BSD kernel derivative and Mac OS X was born.

DTrace was developed by Sun and release as open-source.  Apple used it for Leopard, but again locked it in such a way that it cannot be run on DRM enabled Apple products like iTunes.


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## SunnyChahal (Jun 8, 2008)

^^
Whatever,but OS X looks sooo pretty!Works the same way as well!


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## chandru.in (Jun 8, 2008)

Yup!  It does.  Their UI is the best among all OS.  In terms of *UI alone*,

Mac OS X > Gnome > KDE > Windows


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## FilledVoid (Jun 8, 2008)

Offtopic : Gnome > KDE ?? Im running KDE 4.1 and I think in terms of looks KDE 4 is way ahead of Gnome. however I do agree that the above is subjective. So thats for a different topic .


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## chandru.in (Jun 8, 2008)

I'd agree it is subjective too.  My rating was based on Simplicity of UI alone and not the power offered to the user.  But no flaming please each one's choice is his own.  Unlike other platforms, we at least have the choice of desktop environment.


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## FilledVoid (Jun 8, 2008)

chandru.in said:


> I'd agree it is subjective too.  My rating was based on Simplicity of UI alone and not the power offered to the user.  But no flaming please each one's choice is his own.  Unlike other platforms, we at least have the choice of desktop environment.



I'm sorry if you see my post as a flame  .


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## chandru.in (Jun 8, 2008)

FilledVoid said:


> I'm sorry if you see my post as a flame  .



No not at all.  

It was just a disclaimer in advance.


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## infra_red_dude (Jun 8, 2008)

Can someone point me to the word "Google" on this page? I thot this discussion was about Google's soon-to-be released product!!!


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## chandru.in (Jun 8, 2008)

^^ May be not Google, but you can definitely find Android in it.


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## legolas (Jun 8, 2008)

infra_red_dude said:


> Can someone point me to the word "Google" on this page? I thot this discussion was about Google's soon-to-be released product!!!


the moment iPhone was compared.. all other words lost its value


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