I have a fairly basic cell phone, the LG 570 "Muziq" on Sprint. My wife has an even more basic phone, the Sanyo Katana on Sprint. Both have GPS with voice alerts. I use it virtually every day, but it's only available on the digital network, which generally means within 100 miles of a city or along an interstate (it won't work while kayaking on Lake Superior). The service costs like $10.00 per month. Am I missing something here?

Yes, you missed usability.

You missed the part where you are supposed to praise every new Apple product and release like its the 2nd coming.

My wife has an LG phone too. She has the navigation and it works great. Her phone also plays music and video. It could also surf the web if we wanted the service. When my wife got the phone I wondered why anyone would buy a stand alone GPS system. This is another example of Apple being late to the market and everyone acting like they created the market.

Apple doesn't create markets. It didn't create the MP3 player, or the music phone, or the internet device, or the wireless router, or the laptop, or the music download, or the personal computer, or the.... It just does everything so much better that it extends the market vastly - to everyone who can't be arsed to deal with the unusability of everyone else's attempts at the market.

kaiso:

Apple doesn't create markets. It didn't create the MP3 player, or the music phone, or the internet device, or the wireless router, or the laptop, or the music download, or the personal computer, or the.... It just does everything so much better that it extends the market vastly - to everyone who can't be arsed to deal with the unusability of everyone else's attempts at the market.

I disagree. Apple definitely creates markets, or at least extends existing markets tremendously. Their strength is marketing, packaging existing function in a form that is appealing to image-conscious consumers.

I have a Sprint Mogul, which is a follow-up to Sprint's PPC-6700 I had before. So, for the past 4 years, I've had a touchscreen device with full GPS, voice directions, much faster Internet than the iPhone, music, access to thousands of applications, and many more capabilities (some of which still don't exist in the iPhone). I even considered the iPhone, but it simply can't do all the things I'm used to being able to do with my phone. However, it does not have an Apple logo on it, so having it doesn't make me original and unique, like millions of blind and subservient Apple devotees.

"However, it does not have an Apple logo on it, so having it doesn't make me original and unique, like millions of blind and subservient Apple devotees."

-pat pat-

Yes, you are a beautiful and unique flower. Good for you for avoiding the shackles of slavery... to a consumer device you liked enough to buy.

Really, the anti-Apple sentiment is so over-the-top and melodramatic. People buy Apple products because they like them better than zillion-button, slow (hardware, not network), clunky-looking, hard-to-master devices that "do more" - like yours - not because they are zombies or because they are so much stupider than you.

In other words, you say "a form that is appealing to image-conscious consumers", I say "a form that is appealing, full stop."

That's what I MEAN by doing it so much better than everyone else. They make the same functionality - or even slightly less - see the lack of FM capability in the iPod, yawn, who cares, I hate the radio - worthwhile to people who wouldn't have bothered seeking it out, before. They do that by making it look cooler and work easier. You, gadget-geek, function-shopper, button-pusher, are not the main market for the iPhone. If you want to believe it's because you're BETTER than everyone who IS the market for the iPhone, fine. But you look kind of silly.

Yeah, my Motorola Krazr (verizon) i got over a year ago can run gps; costs $2 a day or some such, or monthly for like $5 or 10. I've found it useful quite a few times. and; if you have a kid, he/she/it can run an application on the krazr (probably the lg and similar too) which interfaces with an application you run on your phone that tells you where the kid (or the phone anyway) is at any given time. and it's free, as a public service. can anyone say, cheap lojack?

It's really not being anti-Apple per se, it's being anti-Apple-just-did-it-so-no-o­ne-else-must-have-done-it-befo­re-even-though-product-specs-a­re-available-so-don't-just-rew­rite-the-Apple-press-release.

The iPhone is 3-4 years behind on pretty much everything.

oh, but what i meant to say is that of course, apple is so much slicker with their interface and controls. that's their thing.

in fact, the "total motorola experience" including accessories, etc. can be a bit irritating, and verizon takes pains to make it even worse by limiting everything to stuff they sell, rather than the general motorola market. I know, apple does that too, but their accessory services and products don't make you wish there was an alternative. i was wondering if that doesn't violate some antitrust law; why is it legal to require that I buy the verizon music manager and verizon ringtones from verizon rather than the motorola music manager and random ringtones on the competitive internet market, if it is illegal to require that I buy HP toner from HP for my HP printer?

Agreed! My LG phone has a GPS system -- and while I don't often use it, it works well at a price of $2.99 for each day of use (cheaper by the month). What I need is a car that will amplify the sound, because the phone's speakers aren't loud enough to hear over road noise. I still prefer my car's built in GPS, but that was expensive, and can't be transferred from car to car.

Admittedly cell phone GPS systems only work when they can judge your location from cell phone towers, while sattelite systems can find you anywhere -- but that's analogous to those people who buy a 4X4 and never leave the paved roads.

"Admittedly cell phone GPS systems only work when they can judge your location from cell phone towers, while sattelite systems can find you anywhere" Systems calculating your position using cell phone towers are not GPS (Global Positioning System), which uses satellites in orbit to do roughly the same thing (with vastly more precision).

Lionesque:

"Admittedly cell phone GPS systems only work when they can judge your location from cell phone towers, while sattelite systems can find you anywhere" Systems calculating your position using cell phone towers are not GPS (Global Positioning System), which uses satellites in orbit to do roughly the same thing (with vastly more precision).

i believe (contrary to my original belief) that the krazr at least, probably the rest too, is a real gps; sure looks like one, maps you down to the "turn left in 100 feet; turn left now" level of precision. also, the system has a setting for "gps on always/gps on only when gps app running" which leads me to believe that it's independent.

but I'll be damned if i can figure out how they cram a gps in there with everything else.