One thing to keep in mind, though, is that most people only need or want a couple of those devices to carry around with them. I think the iPhone will definitely serve as a replacement for many devices for a large number of users. Like anything else, it will depend on the needs of the individual.
For myself, I expect that the iPhone will work well as a book reader (i.e. Victor Reader Stream or BookPort), if not immediately then in short order. I do not feel those devices are good value for your money, so have never been willing to plunk down the cash for them. The iPhone will be an excellent alternative for me. Will the iPHone fulfill everyone's dreams? I seriously doubt it. I think it will depend on what you need from a mobile device. The battery issue is neither here nor there, as it is a problem with any device of this nature. For audio output, the iPhone's battery life is comparable to an iPod, so I think, overall, the life of the charge will be no better or worse than it would be otherwise. Again, this comes back to the individual user's needs and habbits. Just a few cents to ponder. On Jun 15, 2009, at 10:46 AM, Gary W. Kelly wrote: > > Hi, > > Kara is correct. For those of you attended CSUN in March, and recall > the iVisit demonstration of SeeStar and SeeScan--well, you were > watching a camera cellphone with less than 3 megapixels. It could > identify money, and while it is limited in how small print can be, it > is surprisingly good. > > The difficulty for developers for the iPhone is the "crowd at the > door". There are so many developers with good ideas, that Apple is > limited in how much attention they can give individual developers. > This is both good and bad news. It means that the iPhone will not > have everything at once, but it also means that once the flow of new > widgets and systems start, it will flow well for a long time. > > The new iPhone has 256 mb of memory--double the current models, and a > 600 mhz processor. Even so, it will have difficulty doing the heavy > lifting of processing OCR, or even doing recognition tasks. The > iVisit approach revealed at CSUN, depends on a data channel to connect > to a desk server to do that processing intensive work. It is likely > that will remain just as true of future iPhones for a while. > > Since some of the desirable applications will take a couple of years > to have available to the public, there is plenty of time for an iPhone > upgrade by then. Remember, the life cycle of a cellphone is typically > 18 months. > > The greater issues with doing any kind of recognition with a camera on > a cellphone have to do with the human factors of how to aim the > camera, and know the image is in the field. The process requires a > remote server to do the heavy lifting of recognition if you want more > than minimal performance. This means a data plan, and reception > issues. Even at 600 mhz, and 256 mb memory, resources are scant for > serious OCR on the phone. Think of doing that back in 1999 on your > PC. > > Another note of reality for this discussion is to realize that iPhones > now are notorious for being power hungry. If one uses an iPhone as > many typical users do, the battery does *not* last through the day. > There are iPhone kits to provide portable power on the go, to recharge > the iPhone. > > The battery is the weak component. Yes, it would be wonderful to have > all those hardware gadgets in one iPhone package, but currently, you > can only expect to do that for about half a day. If you want to use > your phone after that, you will need to get more power for it. It is > not currently realistic to carry around your phone, and ask it to be a > cellphone, a portable document reader, an email reader, book reader, > music player, GPS navigator, money/object recognizer, color > identifier, bar code/RFID reader, etc, and last for 10-12 hours a day > while you are on the go, too. > > There are real trade-offs that will have to be made, and that > balancing act takes time to play out. I am currently participating in > a study of "best practices" in cellphone design for persons who are > blind. We are finding that few phones running MobileSpeaks can > survive a day without a recharge. Cellphone companies fudge their > numbers by turning out the backlight in 2 seconds, as on the BlackJack > 2, and cutting system resources to the bone to make that 8 hours they > want to advertise. When we go in, and reset it so it can work with > MobileSpeaks, the additional overhead takes a big toll. Just as the > manuals say--running bluetooth uses more power, so does MobileSpeaks, > or any other screen reading system. GPS uses more power, and those > cameras eat power at an incredible rate. In my work with one > application on a Mogul, I could drain the battery in about 2 hours at > most. > > Relax, be patient, and enjoy Snow Leopard when it arrives. > It may take time for iPhones, or any other phone to catch up to our > dreams and desires. > > Gary > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
