Mmmmmmm me want

[adolescent]

Very nice looking phone.  I'm still hoping a US carrier will pick it (or any newer Nokia smart phone) up.  We never even got the N95 at a subsidized price.

[adolescent]

Yeah, N95 here is only available as an unlocked phone.  Was about $800 a few years back, but the N95-8GB is now ~$450.  (Too much for 2-3 year old tech unfortunately, even though you don't need a contract.)

We do get good subsidized deals on iPhone, Windows Mobile and Blackberry handsets, but AFAIK there's only a single S60 phone available from a US carrier.  Sad. :cry:

[adolescent]

bloodline wrote:

The iPhone is subsidized now :-)

Lucky you.  For the US they are still the same price (since the 3G was released*), still the same data rates ($10 more than the original iPhone), and still the 2 year prison sentence.  In short, Apple's price fixing sucks.

* Oh wait, Walmart will be carrying a 4GB iPhone for $99.  :crazy:

[adolescent]

@JJ

RE: Provider... Me too.  Unfortunately, AT&T coverage in my area is bad.  For example, enter 90277 as the zip code on http://www.wireless.att.com/coverageviewer/.  Now south about an inch.  Guess where I live?   :lol:  (I do work to the north, but I need coverage at home.)

[adolescent]

bloodline wrote:

Well, keep an eye on the Market, nokia's bread and butter is the lowcost high volume Market... That is the one the analysts are predicting to down turn... The smartphone Market looks to grow...

I doubt it.  I don't think people with economic hardship will rush out to buy any expensive new phone/gadget.  Apple still has a lot of ground to cover to catch up to Nokia's ~39% market share.

Thus nokia producing the N97 to match the iPhone feature set.

The N95 8G, and N96 matched the iPhone feature set quite well.  The N97 flat out overruns it.

[adolescent]

bloodline wrote:

THat's just ignorance. The N95 was outclassed by the newer iPhone... the N96 was nothing but a refresh of the N95... the N97 is Nokia's first attempt to actually match the iPhone feature set one for one.

Right in with the Apple fanboy insults.  I'll play though.  Please explain what features the iPhone have that "outclass" even the N95 8GB.  Certainly not the camera, GPS/navigation, battery life (equally bad on both really), music/video support, and of course the actual phone/quality/reception.  Not to mention lacking "features" like tethering, stereo Bluetooth/A2DP, voice command, etc.  

[adolescent]

bloodline wrote:
my Win Mobile device just couldn't compete)...

Just for reference, what Windows Mobile device did you have?

[adolescent]

@CaptChaos

True.  The iPhone is NOT a tool, but some iPhone owners are.   :lol:

[adolescent]

@Chubbyrain

Everybody likes different things.  I think we all get that.  I'm personally waiting for the "next" Android phone before I spring for the G1.  Like you the keyboards on these things kind of turn me off (that and the G1 is not so petite).  I would consider a Nokia N9x if the US carriers picked one up.  I'm not paying $800 for any phone, tool, digital mobile lifestyle, etc.

But, just a note that the N97 runs Symbian, not Windows Mobile.

[adolescent]

Chubbyrain wrote:
I admit that Nokia looks nice spec-wise, but I'm not a big fan of the slide out keyboard thingy. Plus I've used Windows mobile devices as well and really didn't care much for them. Not saying the alternatives are crap but just not for me.

Umm.. your wording leads us to believe you were talking about the Nokia, and that you didn't know that it was running Symbian not Windows Mobile.  

You can see where the confusion came from (i.e. you), so don't get snippy about it.

[adolescent]

bloodline wrote:
The N95 does have a 3D GPU... In fact most mobile devices do! Since they all use pretty much the same ARM PowerVR chipset, but Windows Mobile totally lacks any support for it, and Software written for symbian can't rely on 3D support since the OS runs on devices that don't have 3D hardware...

Wrong on both counts. :roll:

Most/all current Windows Mobile devices have hardware GPU support (ex. Touch Diamond).  Qualcomm and HTC didn't get drivers out until earlier this year, but as a result they are now back ported and/or hacked onto older models with the same chipset (ex. Kaiser, Polaris, Nike).

S60 has had hardware 3d support for years (since S60 2nd Edition, Feature Pack 2).  

A developer for OSX knows that the 3D API will be present and can be used. Very few mobile devices have the GFX software support of the iPhone...  

ANY developer targeting ANY platform should know what the platform is capable of.  For instance, if you develop a game for the iPod Touch 2nd Generation, you should know that it has a much faster CPU and GPU than the iPhone 3G, iPhone, or iPod Touch and design as such.

[adolescent]

@AmigaHeritic

It runs S60 5th Edition, not Windows Mobile.

[adolescent]

bloodline wrote:

Most/all current Windows Mobile devices have hardware GPU support (ex. Touch Diamond).  Qualcomm and HTC didn't get drivers out until earlier this year, but as a result they are now back ported and/or hacked onto older models with the same chipset (ex. Kaiser, Polaris, Nike).

Yes, that's right Windows Mobile lacks any official 3D support... I've already said that most mobile devices now come with 3D hardware...

Nope, you are still wrong.  :roll:  Windows Mobile has had Direct3D for some time now.  The difference was previous to working GPU drivers it was using software rendering, not the GPU hardware.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa452478.aspx

S60 has had hardware 3d support for years (since S60 2nd Edition, Feature Pack 2).  

I've already said this... Symbian has support for 3D in software, i.e. OpenGL ES 1.0... But Symbian also runs on devices that don't have 3D hardware... Therefore 3D hardware is not required to make Symbian work... OSX on the other hand does require 3D hardware.

Not sure why this is really important to you.  Like I said, if you target a specific platform, you should know what the platform can do and design as appropriate.  On the S60 platform it's as simple as checking a string value to determine if there is hardware or software 3d support.  (You need to check for other features anyway, such as screen size, color depth, etc.)  

And, what does Mac OS 10 have to do with anything?  :crazy:  We're talking about mobile operating systems, Windows Mobile, Symbian, iPhone OS, etc.  

And any developer expecting to make any money will target the lowest common denominator, since that is the largest market...

And risk the game running incorrectly on the faster model?  Better to just add logic to change the game experience basesd on the system it's run on. (ie. run with more detail on an iPod Touch 2nd gen., less on iPhone 3G, still less on the older models.)  This isn't anything specific to any architecture, from Amiga OS to iPhone OS, to Symbian.  

[adolescent]

Trev wrote:

Microsoft, in its zeal to get Windows Mobile onto as many phones as possible, is left with a phone OS that no one wants to use, and more importantly, one that developers don’t want to code for. Developers, who have long been getting chump change for their apps, are starting to see that they can make quite a bit of money developing programs for rival platforms such as the iPhone. Compounding the problem is the sheer number of devices that run Windows Mobile. If I’m a coder who wants to develop for Windows Mobile, which phone specs will I be using when I sit down and try to hash out some code? Will the phone have an acceleromator? Will it have a touchscreen? How big will the screen even be?! The questions are endless, and the headaches for developers numerous.

Agreed.  As I've said about 5 times in this thread so far, developers really need to know their target (unless you're doing J2ME stuff but even then you still need to know what JSRs are supported).  

Anyway, iPod/iPhone developers aren't immune to this either (albiet to a lesser scale because of the devices infancy); GPS or no GPS?  FPU or no FPU?  CPU speed?  To make matters worse, AFAIK there is nothing in the SDK that allows you to determine device capabilities.  There's probably an undocumented API call somewhere, but we know how Apple likes developers using undocumented features.  :lol:

[adolescent]

Trev wrote:
I wasn't trying to say that they needed to know their target platform (which in this case is Windows Mobile and not the hardware itself, although having to compile for multiple CPUs does complicate performance analysis)--that's a given. What I was I trying to imply is that programmers need to be smarter than that.

See AmigaHeretic's message above.  Windows Mobile only supports a single CPU (family).  

Extending the GPS reference a bit, you don't write GPS code, you write location awareness code and let the operating environment worry about how the location is determined (GPS, cell tower triangulation, WiFi hotspot database, user input, etc.). It's unfair to blame the platform for your own design mistakes.

Not blaming the platform, I was only using the example of how the devices do not have the same performance and/or functionality.  That is, the iPod Touch uses Core Location very differently than any of the iPhones due to it's lack of GPS and GSM.  

The main point is that these gaps are only going to get bigger as new iPhone/iPod models are released.  Perhaps a new iPhone will have a better bluetooth profile, increased resolution, etc.  The criticism that Windows Mobile was difficult to develop for simply because there are so many varying devices available is likely to affect the iPhone/iPod too.