Former Apple CEO Creates an iPhone Competitor 143
An anonymous reader links to Fast Company's profile of Obi Worldphone, one-time Apple CEO John Sculley's venture into smartphones. The company's first two products (both reasonably spec'd, moderately priced Android phones) are expected to launch in October. And though the phones are obviously running a different operating system than Apple's, Sculley says that Obi is a similarly design-obsessed company:
"The hardest part of the design was not coming up with cool-looking designs," Sculley says. "It was sweating the details over in the Chinese factories, who just were not accustomed to having this quality of finish, all of these little details that make a beautiful design. We had teams over in China, working for months on the floor every day. We intend to continue that process and have budgeted accordingly."
Obi is also trying to set itself apart from the low-price pack by cutting deals for premium parts. "Instead of going directly to the Chinese factories, we went to the key component vendors, because we know that ecosystem and have the relationships," Sculley says. "We went to Sony. It’s struggling and losing money on its smartphone business, but they make the best camera modules in the world."
Newton II... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
These are Android phones, Slashdot should be cheering this guy.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Newton II... (Score:4, Funny)
The headline should have read "Idiot who almost killed Apple does obvious business thing."
Rounded Edges (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
That's gonna be a nope (Score:5, Insightful)
" quality of finish, all of these little details that make a beautiful design"
Yeah, that's nice and all, but what we really want is usability. Freedom from the advertising deluge. Control. Everybody and their brother can make a svelte 3D mockup that looks beautiful. But in the end it's going to come down to software. It's why Apple ruled the roost early on. A beautiful piece of garbage is still a piece of garbage. And, tbh, we have enough of that out here at the moment.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I want a phone that backs off the bleeding edge somewhat when it comes to thinness, and allows for better battery capacity. Similar with having 8 cores of 64 bit ARM processors.
The classic example of a simple, yet functioning design would be the Palm V. PalmOS wasn't the fastest kid on the block... but it worked, was extremely usable, and for what it did, it did well. Plus, the design still looks good today.
I want a decent smartphone. I don't want a tracker device to give every advertiser every single p
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
3: Timeless design. Not silver painted plastic. The Palm V is 15+ years old, and it still looks decent even compared to modern units.
The Palm V looks like something shat out by a more modern handheld. Seriously. It looks like my Transformer Prime did a poo. At least pick a Tungsten.
I like the idea of a phone that can run multiple operating systems at once, though. That would be neat, if it didn't punch your battery in the nuts.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't want a tracker device to give every advertiser every single piece of data the phone gets. I don't want a media device slinging ads, loaded with bloatware.
You can either have a smartphone, or you can avoid having those things, not all 3 things.
Nokia 3310 [wikipedia.org] for no ads, bloatware, trackers for advertisers.
It's not a smartphone, but it is a smart phone.
Re: (Score:2)
He doesn't need to go back. He can buy an iPhone. Apple's business model isn't about tracking users. Whilst of course there's there's implicit traceability if you choose to use anything that needs the cloud, Apple doesn't force that on you, or do anything that is explicitly intended to track you for advertisers.
Third party software might track location. But that's mostly about making the choice whether you want to pay for an app up front, or opt for adware.
As to bloatware, again that's not a smartphone prob
Re: (Score:2)
" quality of finish, all of these little details that make a beautiful design"
Yeah, that's nice and all, but what we really want is usability. Freedom from the advertising deluge. Control. Everybody and their brother can make a svelte 3D mockup that looks beautiful. But in the end it's going to come down to software. It's why Apple ruled the roost early on. A beautiful piece of garbage is still a piece of garbage. And, tbh, we have enough of that out here at the moment.
And beautiful design and usability are mutually exclusive? Let's save our scorn until after we have actually seen a working example of this thing and confirmed by physically testing the device that it is not usable.
Re: (Score:2)
Look, if the CEO is infinitely concerned about the finish and feel, and says nothing about the system, then it better be a piece of jewelry he's talking about - not a phone. Getting a nice finish isn't hard - all the majors are doing it. Getting a nice interface is much more difficult - almost nobody is getting it right. But he's not crowing about how he's talking every effort to make usability the number one goal - he's just polishing the fenders and hoping you don't ask about what's under the hood.
Re: (Score:2)
Is there a new model (Score:2)
It looks like the SJ1.5 is 3g? Which frankly is plenty fast for any data I need to access on a 5" device, but the carries are not standing up the towers so.. I want my 4g.
Re: (Score:2)
"sweating the details in the Chinese factory" (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, you might want to think about how you word that.
So I guess CEO's don't get hit with non-compete (Score:1)
clauses? You know, the same kind that Apple and, like, every other tech company in Silicon Valley feel obliged to lob at at new-hire programmers and such. Or do they not do that anymore?
Re:So I guess CEO's don't get hit with non-compete (Score:5, Informative)
Non-Compete Clauses are illegal/void in California:
http://californianoncompete.co... [californianoncompete.com]
Re:So I guess CEO's don't get hit with non-compete (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
1983 to 1993: that is when Sculley was CEO of Apple.
Even Apple wouldn't want to pay for a 20 or 25 years non-compete clause.
Re:So I guess CEO's don't get hit with non-compete (Score:4, Insightful)
Non-competes are often not enforceable after a person's employment contract is over. If a company doesn't want you to work for a competitor, they can usually be required to compensate you for that, typically in an amount equivalent to salary for the duation of the non-compete.
They may be able to successfully sue you for NDA violation, as long as they have a sufficient factual basis to show that it was more likely than not that you had actually violated the NDA. But that's not the same thing as a non-compete.
Re: (Score:3)
They may be able to successfully sue you for NDA violation, as long as they have a sufficient factual basis to show that it was more likely than not that you had actually violated the NDA.
That would be difficult to prove in this case since he has been gone for 20 years and apples reputation for keeping it's trade secrets secret.
Re: (Score:2)
If my employers wanted to pay me 25 years of salary for a non-compete clause... I'd be happy to oblige.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, and Sculley hasn't been CEO of Apple for more than two decades.
Anyhow, non-competes here in Quebec are only valid here if they are pretty carefully worded (they're legal, but courts have voided non-compete clauses that were considered unreasonably broad). Even if somebody working for Apple in Quebec had a non-compete clause, and went to work for a smartphone company in Quebec making low-end phones, the employee could probably argue successfully that the new smartphone company did not operate in the sa
Re: (Score:2)
In practice, an ex employer is not even going to know what a former employee is doing after he or she leaves, let alone who they are working for without having to spend time and resources following what that person is doing outside of company time. Non-competes really are, for all practical purposes, completely unenforceable, and not generally worth the paper they are printed on... at best they typically only serve as a cautionary warning to not violate any NDA's, which an employer *CAN* legally go after
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In practice, an ex employer is not even going to know what a former employee is doing after he or she leaves, let alone who they are working for without having to spend time and resources following what that person is doing outside of company time
That used to be true, but these days with LinkedIn it's hard to *not* know what your former cow-orkers are doing and where they're working.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In engineering, that's most people it seems. I'm constantly getting emails about cow-orkers from years ago, and most of them aren't even in my "friends list"; it still figures out I know them somehow and sends me an alert ("Do you know John Smith, principal engineer at XYZ Corp?").
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
A 22 year non-complete? That would not be an agreement, it would be indentured servitude.
Duhhhhhh..... (Score:1)
So you have to spend a bunch of effort to make a reasonable quality smartphone in China.. and buying the components from a supplier directly is better than asking the middle man to do it for you... um wow!! I'm shocked!!
John Sculley? (Score:1, Funny)
If it's John Scully (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple has nothing to worry about.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple has nothing to worry about.
I disagree right here. After all, the guy - and he is the only one who can claim this - came very close to sinking Apple itself!
If there's one guy Apple should be worry about it's the one that almost killed them.
Does it have to be in China? (Score:2)
Have they tried some other country's factories? Like, to pick at random, the US? Just a thought...
How much more expensive would it make each unit, if they were made in a better place?
Re: (Score:2)
Lol was looking for this comment. Sad I had to scroll down for it, and not find it modded up yet.
I'm pretty sure it would be a lot more expensive. The stuff they get away with in China is literally criminal over here. How much more, I don't know- no one is making them to compare.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
But those owners can have a rather diverse set of products to make still. For example, when we were placing an order for "Lutron" light-switches for our house, the manufacturer made that customized order for us — a total of about 60 devices, some of them standard (sold at Home Depot), but others more specific.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Too bad (Score:2)
A company that made a serious concerted effort to do Android correctly could plow Apple under.
It would have to be a service oriented company intent on maintaining a secure and up to date Android distribution for users of it's phones. The app base is there waiting for somebody to roll out the right platform for it to run on.
Re: (Score:1)
Not used to quality details? (Score:3, Insightful)
I call BS. The people running Chinese factories understand quality far better than most of the world. They are constantly concerned with it and have a mandate to move up the quality and technology chain, else lose their shirts when Vietnam or Bangladesh or some other poor Asian country hits the power curve part of the contract manufacturing business.
This guy must have picked the cheapest of cheap desperate Chinese manufacturers and then decided to ride them like hell on details. Apple, LG, Samsung and so many others build the top-quality devices in China. Anyone credible over there knows what they're doing.
Re:Not used to quality details? (Score:4, Insightful)
This guy must have picked the cheapest of cheap
This is the key part right here. You want the cheapest nastiest piece of plastic that will fall apart as you unpack it? China has what you want. You want top quality precision ground mirrors for a high-end telescope? China has what you want.
The only question is how much money you wish to part with.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
John Sculley? The guy who nearly killed Apple? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, the guy ran Pepsico for a while.
But his business management was so damn pedestrian that he took Apple from a growing company with a complete lock on the education and AV markets to an also-ran that became so afraid of innovation (mostly because Jobs had gone wild, running after any and everything, before that) that the company stagnated nearly to death.
He was okay as a brand manager. But absolute shit at actually LEADING the company and bringing forth new products.
Re: (Score:3)
But wasn't Jobs the one who gave Sculley the job? So the pre-iMac Jobs was just as guilty as Sculley of nearly running Apple to the ground?
Re: (Score:1)
Scully increased Apple's revenue ten fold during his tenure as CEO. It was the idiots who followed him that tanked the company.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2469542,00.asp
Re: (Score:1)
Sculley was the guy who wanted to be a cultural superstar. In the process, he saw Steve Jobs getting in the way (turns out Jobs really wanted to run the company, although he was perfectly happy to leave the CEO title to Sculley) so Sculley pushed him aside.
Sure, Apple's revenues were high because Sculley milked the Mac as a cash cow even while Windows was taking off. By the time Sculley was thrown out, the game was lost. Microsoft and Windows had won, Mac OS and OS/2 had lost.
Oh, BTW Sculley stole the id
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
iPod (Score:2)
Obi Worldphone Kenobi (Score:1)
Sculley STILL doesn't get it! (Score:1)
Yes, cool looking is good, cost effective high-quality production helps, but if the underlying functioning of the device is bad or mediocre, no cool looks will help! Under his CEO-ship Apple was run down to just barely surviving by his strategy & decisions.
When is the "Obi Challenge"? (Score:1)
I believe one of the things John Sculley was best known for is the "Pepsi Challenger" where people were given unmarked cups of Pepsi and Coke to drink and decide which tastes better. So it seems only natural to expect John Sculley's new company will eventually run advertisements where people have to stick an iPhone and an Obi Worldphone in their mouth and then state which was better.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Can you tell at a glance which swag t-shirt costs $5 versus $0.50?
Trick question. They're all about 50 cents cost when you outsource overseas.
Re: (Score:2)
"Quality of finish" includes things like whether the seam between face and sides is smooth, if edges are nicely beveled, etc. Almost everyone cares about such things
I can't see any of those details after I put the device in an Otterbox case.
Honestly, I'd rather see someone make a semi-ruggedized phone that has a bigger battery and an Otterbox-like case built in (not an add-on). They'd have a better-performing product and save space by not needing the regular case which just gets covered up by the rubberiz
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They're not going to survive getting dropped onto a pile of rocks without getting scratched up at the very least. IIRC, IP68 is just about weatherproofing. That's great, it won't get ruined if it gets a little wet, or maybe even dropped in the pool. But getting dropped onto concrete is a different matter. An Otterbox case handles that stuff.
Also, IP68 doesn't help you with battery life. There's been way too much of a trend lately towards super-slim phones. Everyone except the Apple cultists is screami
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Strange, I've never seen one of these in a store anywhere. If it's some special model that costs $5000, that really isn't a fair comparison. Even worse if it's some shitty thing with a slow CPU and a 0.5MP camera.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:"quality of finish" does anybody really care? (Score:4, Insightful)
I can see you do not own an iPhone either.
That being said, I think the Nexus 5 really was the best looking phone on the market when I bought one. Mostly because it did not have that goofy curved back that some Samsung phones have, nor that absurdly large bezel that Motorola has. I hope the Nexus 5mkII looks the same.
Re: (Score:2)
I can see you do not own an iPhone either.
That being said, I think the Nexus 5 really was the best looking phone on the market when I bought one. Mostly because it did not have that goofy curved back that some Samsung phones have, nor that absurdly large bezel that Motorola has. I hope the Nexus 5mkII looks the same.
When I showed my Nexus 5 to my car detailer, he was shocked at how good it was simply to hold compared to his Iphone 6 and Samsung Galaxy S 5.
This is a car detailer, so he really didn't know much, nor care about the technical details. He was just impressed by how easy it is to hold for such a large phone (IMHO, its due to the type of plastic used for the backing). These are the kinds of things that non-phone people find important. His first question was about how good the camera is, which is pretty damn
Re: (Score:2)
There is a new version of the Nexus 5 coming out this fall. I plan on getting one.
You can also get a brand new Nexus 5 on ebay for about 200 bucks. The new version will probably be 350 or so.
Re: (Score:3)
I thought large bezels were absurd until I actually started using an assortment of portable devices. Now I realize that having a place for my fingers to wrap around to on a phone, or just a place to hold the thing between thumb and forefinger for a tablet, is actually a feature and not a problem. Having the screen right out to the edge means accidental touches on the side of the display, at least, for my fat fingers.
Re: (Score:2)
I have never had problems with it on the N5. As Steve Jobs would say... maybe you are holding the phone wrong. :)
Re: (Score:2)
I have never had problems with it on the N5. As Steve Jobs would say... maybe you are holding the phone wrong. :)
Sadly, there's nothing to be done about it, I'm a gigantic mutant living in a world controlled by tiny people. I have phablet fingers and PDA pockets.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I do. I don't use a case, so I want the phone to be nice and hold up well in my pocket.
However, I also want it to be cheap and sometimes this wins out over nice.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
I wonder if that's a result of Sony buying Konica-Minolta's camera operations.
It is. I have a Sony a65, which is an awesome camera. But, yeah, its lineage is Konica-Minolta.
Re: (Score:2)
Sony's been in the camera business a long, long time, with everything from CCTV to studio cameras. Their sensors are behind lots of lenses.
That they might make the best compact modularized camera is a concept that I'll take with the appropriate quantity of salt, but I would not be surprised at all if the claim were true.
Re:Sony makes the best camera modules? (Score:5, Informative)
Many DSLRs use Sony CMOS sensors. They are also the king of low-noise CCD sensors.
Re:Sony makes the best camera modules? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not just many DSLRs, but some of the best performing DSLRs with some of the best specs in the market. Canon used to give Nikon a lot of flack for using 3rd party sensors in their cameras when they design their own. Yet here we are and they have yet to release a product capable of matching the dynamic range and SNR of the D800 4 years after its release. The sensor in the D800, It's a Sony IMX094AQP
CMOS and CCD sensors are now the only time I will use the words "It's a Sony" out of praise rather than disgust.
Re: (Score:2)
I have a high-end Sony astronomy cooled CCD camera with the icx814 sensor. The thing is unbelievable. 3.69m pixels, 10 minute dark exposures (that is, exposures with the lens cap on for calibration purposes), and not a single pixel gets illuminated. I have never seen another camera perform this well.
Even a lot of Nikon designed sensors are manufactured by Sony. They are just that good at it.
I think I will wait for the a7sII to come out then pick up a used/refurbished a7s. I would rather have a D800s, but i
Re: (Score:2)
Sony should just stick to sensors and get out of the consumer product business. When they make a full product to sell to consumers, it's always sub-par, and usually has something in there to screw over the user somehow.
Re: (Score:2)
When they make a full product to sell to consumers, it's always sub-par, and usually has something in there to screw over the user somehow.
I figure that is one of the consequences of being both a media company and a hardware company. The media side of things can't help but keep trying to screw over the consumer.
Re: (Score:2)
My wife has one of those Xperias too (not sure about the sub-model). I'm not impressed. Hers has an intermittent problem where she has to use a headset or it won't work (can't talk and can't hear); it seems pretty obvious it's a malfunctioning headphone jack that thinks a headset is plugged in all the time (when this problem happens; it comes and goes). However when she's taken it to repair places to get it fixed, they take one look at those stupid "liar dots" as you call them and just tell her it has wa
Re: (Score:2)
QHY23 or QSI 690?
I'm a QHY10 man myself. Still in the one shot colour world. Though I do have the occasional dead pixel with 10min subs I'm sure I could eliminate it by running my cooler harder. I only image at -20C at I can probably easily go down to -35C if I actually gave my cooler a bit of workout.
I'm about to switch to a mono camera due to moving to a more light polluted part of the world.
Re: (Score:2)
Atik 490ex mono, which is very similar to the QHY in size. You will love shooting mono, I just did my first narrowband last month and it was fantastic. I still need to figure out how to get the focus perfect, though. With so little light coming through on the narrowband filters, it is a bit harder to get the focus exact. One of these days I will get an autofocus motor.
I don't image at -20C in the summer though, its too damn warm out here and the cooler cant get it that low without killing the battery. But
Re: (Score:2)
One of these days I will get an autofocus motor.
Oh yes do. Even with a short refractor I can graph my focus getting worse as the temperature changes during a night of imaging. Before switching to autofocus I would stop and manually re-focus using a bahtinov mask every 2degC change. That was annoying as it involved slewing to a bright star. Autofocus is a godsend.
And I don't have any experience with Atik at all. I'll look them up.
Re: (Score:2)
I mostly chose Atik because their cameras are the smallest diameter compared to cameras with the same chip. Notably from QHY and StarlightXpress (I think those are the only 3 companies that make a small form factor icx814 camera). This is because I use Hyperstar on a C8, where the camera is in front of the corrector plate. It was also why I got an icx814 camera, to get the highest pixel density to match the aperture.
It looks odd, but works great. Even at my dark site I usually don't do longer than 5 minute
Re: (Score:2)
Do you get a flat field with the hyperstar? I have an older C8 with the Fastar lens and I used it once or twice and while it was great being able to shoot at ludicrous apertures and short exposures ultimately I was never able to get a flat field. I eventually gave up and bought an ED80 for wider angle imaging. The EdgeHD has an in built corrector at the back of the telescope, which wouldn't be in use if you use a hyperstar, hence my question.
Re: (Score:2)
No, vignetting is fairly major with Hyperstar and f/2.1. Hyperstar and Fastar are really the same thing, Celestron sold the technology to Starizona. However the later incarnations of Hyperstar (I have the latest version 3), add things like easy to use rotator and collimation bolts
However, taking flat field images cancels it out very nicely. You would want to do this to deal with blemishes since the corrector is a dust-magnet anyhow. I haven't found an easy way to use a flat field box, but doing twilight fl
Re: (Score:2)
I think you misunderstood what I meant, I didn't mean flat field as in vignetting, I meant flat field as in the field of focus. I could never get edge to edge sharpness with my hyperstar. This likely had a lot to do with trying to achieve accurate backfocus which I don't think I was ever able to do because the focus plane was so incredibly thin.
Mind you shooting through an old C8 with a field flattener I was never able to get a 100% perfectly flat focus field either, but I did get it flat enough to be usefu
Re: (Score:2)
Oh oh, right. It is reasonably flat, t though the sensor I have is pretty small and is only using the middle of the field. A much larger sensor like the kodak ones might not perform so well. Also, the focus and collimation is really really touchy.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh which reminds me... no collimation screws on the old Farstar.... effectively there's nothing I could do about mirror tilt. Yeah there's a reason why I didn't use it :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, from what I could tell the old versions of it were not very good.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Both my Canon S95 camera and my Apple iPhone 6 use Sony camera sensors, so... they do, pretty much.
Re: Is a camera that important? (Score:1)
All Scully has to do is come out with an average-plus phone that runs Android and offers a robust security and upgrade service. The company that manages to do this could own the Android platform.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
well he tries to sell them as upmarket.
they're not. pirate copies of samsung phones are more upmarket(no shit really, they have better specs, despite being pirate clones! 100 bucks for octacore nowadays. and yes they put octacore socs in phones they try to make look like samsungs! the business logic is baffling but thats what they do).
also the guy does not understand dual sim. he thinks it will help people call internationally to home. that's really baffling.