At the C4 conference in Chicago, Craig Hockenberry gave an interesting talk describing many of the challenges he's faced developing Twitterific for the iPhone. Craig is one of the pre-eminent iPhone developers, with a popular application he's been working on since long before the iPhone SDK was released. He's someone worth listening to, particularly when it comes to the iPhone. The title of his talk? "IPHONE ITS NOT A FRICKEN MINATURE LAPTOP OK".
That the iPhone is not a miniature laptop is a common reply I've seen to many desires posted about the iPhone. From desires to install software outside the App Store to looking for true root access, this is the argument that's returned: the iPhone isn't a laptop.
The problem is, there are multiple facets to this argument, and I believe they've been muddled. Specs-wise, the iPhone is awfully powerful. With 128 Megs of RAM, 400 MHz processor, and so on, the machine is as powerful as those that ran Mac OS X 10.2 and even 10.3 and up. The battery is the one limiting factor, but laptops often face this same restriction. Looking strictly at hardware, the iPhone really is a miniature laptop.
From a marketing perspective as well, Apple has often pitched the iPhone as an implicit "computer in your pocket". With the 3G, this has been scaled back, but previously Apple touted the fact that OS X was powering the iPhone. Further, when they talk about all you can do with the iPhone, it becomes easy to view it as a laptop that happens to fit in your pocket. So marketing-wise, it seems we've also got a miniature laptop.
However, the idea that Craig's talk really brought into focus for me is that currently, the iPhone is not designed as a miniature laptop. This is a different argument, and the distinction is important. I believe it's been conflated with other arguments, even in my own mind.
Apple has explicitly limited the iPhone in many ways. Many of the applications are scaled-down versions of desktop apps. Mail is simplified (no Rules, for instance), Safari is bare-bones (No bookmark editing view), and even the iPod application is essentially a very simplified version of iTunes. Apple has hidden many of the details of the iPhone OS, far more so than they do on Mac OS X.
As a technical minded personal, I disagree with many of these decisions. I'd like to have more power available somewhere, as we do with the Mac OS X - pretty up front, but user-accessible power hidden behind the scenes. But currently, that's not what we do have. We have a simplified device with many artificial limitations, and that's what we need to develop for. Gradually, I'm coming to accept that.
We can certainly continue to hope for more on the iPhone, and I believe the iPhone could be even better than it is. For now, however, we must accept what we do have in the iPhone and design for that. The iPhone could be a miniature laptop. Currently, however, it's not. Design decisions must be based around that reality.
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iPhone is largely limited because it's being sold as a cell phone, and people expect phones to work, so battery must be conserved and the cell network must be protected. And even with its artificial limits, iPhone 3G is having trouble living up to people's battery life expectations and protecting AT&T's network from overload :)
But I wonder if Apple is willing to fork off in a different direction with iPod touch, because it's not a phone, but really even more so a miniature laptop. Will people be more forgiving of (and take more responsibility for) running out of power for this type of mobile device?
you're right, it's not a UMPC. it's a simplified computer, a consumer appliance instead. it's not open-ended like a full-fledged computer with all its potentials available for software or user access and use.
that's just fine with me and 95+% of all the people in the world. i've already got computers, don't need another one in my pocket. i just need an ultra-convenient media/communication/reference/entertainment device.
i realize that frustrates tech people and hobbyists. sorry, but you are not the intended audience for the iPhone/Touch. hack it if you must, but don't complain because it isn't the UMPC gizmo that only the few of you want.
Has anyone gotten Linux running on an iPod touch? It's an intriguing little computer. And it's more powerful than the linux boxes of only a few years ago.
Breaking news... iPhone is also not a ham sandwich. Film at 11.
mark: It's interesting, because people do expect cell phones to work, but I think even with all of Apple's restrictions, we've seen a lot of performance issues. I know 2.0 (up through 2.0.2) don't feel nearly as responsive or fluid as the 1.xs.
It would be interesting for the iTouch to be more of mini-laptop. However, the lack of constant internet access changes the nature of the device. It would still be very useful, even with only Wifi, however, just like a laptop.
alfiejr: Even the UMPC isn't what it resembles though, because that doesn't have the pocket-sized form factor. UMPCs are small, but not small enough to land in a pocket.
You're certainly correct, Apple isn't choosing the "mini-laptop" market to go after. However, I think your numbers (while obviously hyperbolic) underestimate just how popular the "mini-laptop" idea is. users who've jailbroken their phone is looking for more power than Apple is allowing, and that's hundreds of thousands of users, if not more. "Only a few" really isn't accurate.
Further, it's not as if the two ideas are mutually exclusive. You can have an "ultra-convenient media/communication/reference/entertainment device" that can also be optionally expanded. If you don't wish to access its full potential, that's just fine, but does that mean everyone should be prevented from doing so?
Ida: I'm not aware of Linux running on a Touch, but it may be out there. It's certainly a more interesting idea than Linux on the iPod Classic, and that's been done.
Russ Rushmore: I'm not sure what your point is with this, but there certainly are differing opinions on just what the iPhone is, in terms of being a full-fledged computer or not. Less so with ham sammys.
So I see this article in the RSS feed and it looks interesting but it has no formatting and shows up as a big solid block of text and I think "that's no good" and so I come to the site to read it here and it has real paragraphs which is a great inprovement but inexplicably it's written in white text on a black background and I think "sheesh are these guys actively trying to stop me reading this thing?" and I give up.
Ida: if you jailbreak your iPod Touch or iPhone, it becomes a small computer. There's SSH, bash, Python with openGL bindings, Ruby, and even GCC running in it. It's not Linux, it's scads better. It's Darwin + Cocoa Touch. Basically an ARM version of OS X in all respects.
Unfortunately less than 10% of iPhone users jailbreak their device (it's an early adopter / alpha geek thing) so applications developed to take advantage of jailbroken capabilities are limited in customer reach. But for satisfying your own developer urges and scratching your own ubiquitous computing itches, it's awesome.
I'm amazed Erica didn't chime in about this.