The first version of Safari competed with only one other browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 Mac, which was already end-of-life. Microsoft quite famously converted IE from a cross-platform Mac, Unix, Windows browser to a Windows component. The Mac OS X version was very, very slow, never really making it all the way across the divide from Mac OS 9. But if you wanted to use Mac OS X it was your only choice in Web browser.

With the default browser from the Mac end-of-life, Apple had to install another browser as the default and they chose to make their own. So instead of IE 6 we got Safari 1. There was no other browser to choose from.

> Not to mention the fact that Camino

… comes way after Safari in the timeline. Camino went 1.0 in 2006. Safari filled the gap left by IE in 2003 well before Camino shipped. Your timelines are way off.

> Firefox

Firefox is also post-Safari. Safari filled the gap left by IE in 2003 well before Firefox shipped. Again, your timelines are way, way off. Firefox 1.0 shipped almost 2 years after Safari 1.0.

Safari 1.0: January, 2003
Firefox 1.0: November, 2004

> and Opera

Opera is not now and has never been a major browser. It’s strength is mobiles, yet today most mobile Web browser usage is Safari.

> browsers are much better on the Mac than Safari.

That’s your personal opinion. However, Apple had to introduce Safari in January 2003 to fill a gaping software need before you could judge Safari against other browsers that came after it and then go on to mistakenly call bullshit on somebody for pointing out there was a lack of browsers on Mac OS X in 2003.

> Good story otherwise, just this flagrant bull shit
> at the end makes you toss the whole story as an
> Apple paid ad.

Before you say something like flagrant bull shit you should at least check Wikipedia to see if you are out of your fucking mind at the moment.

If somehow Apple guarantees that AT&T won’t lose revenue (or that amount is otherwise offset through gains elsewhere) do you think AT&T would care at all if the iPhone is open or not?

I think AT&T might care that Jobs is apparently interested enough to meet with the founder of FON though:

Video: What’s Steve Jobs like in a meeting?
http://counternotions.com/2007/10/26/sj-meeting-video/

Now with their subscriber numbers soaring as a direct result of the phone, opening up the platform not only makes the iPhone more desirable, it adds to the viability of the iPod Touch, not to mention any other Ultra-portable computing solutions being concocted by the mad scientists in Cupertino — iTablet, anyone?

This is just the issue I explore in my latest article:

AT&T: iPhone changes how we’ll do business
http://counternotions.com/2007/10/26/att-iphone-changes/

Of course, Motorola should concentrate on making non-crappy phones and leave Apple alone. But that’s only the first step.

The next step for handset makers is to stand up to the service providers to prevent them from selling the phones with most of its features hamstrung. As much as we admire the iPhone, I admire Apple more for breaking the paradigm in its relationship with AT&T.

Before my iPhone I had a RAZR, a truly crappy phone better put to use scraping gum off the sidewalk. Instead of whining about Apple and the iPhone, Motorola should try designing a phone that isn’t a piece of crap. If they make a better phone, people will buy it. What is sad is that Apple with it’s very first telephone is beating Motorola soundly. For a company that has been making cell phones for almost as long as cell phones have been around, this is deeply embarrassing. Earth to Motorola, if you can’t stand the heat, take your ball and go crying back to mommy. Motorola should either shut up and compete, or leave the cell phone market to the big kids.