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iPhone, Apple TV Headline MacWorld Keynote
Steve Jobs kept his audience rapt at the MacWorld keynote today. He rehashed the announcement of the iTV, now called Apple TV, and announced the iPhone, a revolutionary phone/ipod/wrist-computer that had MacWorld attendees sitting on the edge of their seats. Retailing for $499 (4 gig)/$599 (8 gig), it has to be seen to be believed. It uses a touch screen with a new form of input control, runs OSX and many standard applications, and connects to the internet via WiFi. It has a camera, functions as a movie player, a music player, and can send emails and photos in the middle of a phone call. From the Engadget coverage: "'[OSX] let us create desktop class applications and networking, not the crippled stuff you find on most phones, these are real desktop applications.' He's quoting Alan Kay - 'People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.' 'So we're bringing breakthrough software to a mobile device for the first time.'" Seriously, go check this out. They're going to print money with this thing.
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Any word on battery life on this thing?
So like you will $60 + month $40 for data $20 + for voice.
And those prices will be exactly the same in June because you can see the future.
Seriously - they'll be able to sell data in volume now. Price will drop or be bundled with voice.
This device makes data compelling for everyone else - not just Johnny Businessman. It is what the phone companies built the data networks for in the first place.
Since this new device runs OSX, it's a great time for those of us with Mac development experience. A whole new (and huge) market for our products.
Likewise, there's a new incentive for Windows-only applications to get ported to OSX so they can run on the iPhone.
Personally, I think that the term "revolutionary" gets used way too much. But in the case of the iPhone, it seems appropriate.
-ch
My oldest dream. A real ebook reader.
Even if we get a simple text file display app, the ebook is finally here.
If slashdot hates it, this thing is going to be successful. I remember the ipod was also coldly received around here. The ipod demonstrated the huge disconnect between "expert" slashdot users and your everyday consumer. In short, slashdotters severely undervalue ease of use.
Much as I detest Cingular, Apple likely had little choice but to partner with one of the major cell phone carriers. Apple could, of course, had sold the iPhone without a SIM and had the customers install their own.
That would have been a marketing / tech support / and logistical mess, with different networks providing different data plans, features, connectivity, and even basic networks (GSM versus whatever the hell's out there). Partnering with Cingular makes life ever so much easier for Apple. Not only that, it prevents Cingular / ATT from partnering with some vaporware future Microsoft product that could steal Apple's thunder.
I'm not going to defend Cingular's horrific record. They're awful, no doubt. But all the wireless firms are awful right now. Given that Steve divested Apple of the awesome Imaging group, the nifty Newton, and other business units it would be surprising if Apple wanted to get into the cell phone provisioning business.
On another note, I'm already looking at how to rewrite a few Widgets to work on the iPhone...
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
Remember that Apple's been making buckets of money, for years, by selling things that either were or were perceived to be more expensive than the competition.
I think Cingular and T-Mobile share the same network, at least in part, so you might actually be getting the same service.
...
Random access voice mail almost certainly required that they get the cooperation of a specific provider.
The price is a bit high. I'd guessed $499 but without a contract. They could certainly obliverate their competition if they were able to get it cheaper, but this is to the Treo or Sidekick as Final Cut Pro was to Adobe Premiere when it was introduced. In other words, it blasts the competition into smithereens.
I wonder if terminal and ssh are included somewhere in the device. Those nice Blackberry folks charge $95 for ssh and that would make up a lot of the price disadvantage if it was included in the Phone's MacOS X installation.
Finally, when I heard all the stuff that goes on that device, I would think you'd want a 30gb version. 4 and 8 gb of Flash almost seems like an insult for something that powerful. I suppose a hard drive would have made it too big and heavy, but still, people carry around hard drive based iPods just fine, and a hard drive iPod's not much different in size from the sidekick.
It's a pity consumers really love small
D
In this thread I want to give you the opportunity to state whether your earlier trolling against cellphones with mp3 playback functionality was 100%-Apple-fanboyism or if you stand by it and think the iPhone should never have happened. Thx.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
I love how people will gladly pay this and much more for a computer that does NOT:
*fit in the palm of your hand
*have a touchscreen
*have an OS redesigned around the touchscreen
*have a display
*make and receive phone calls
*deliver email the very second it arrives on the server
But package a computer -- a full blown one running Mac OS X -- into a tiny, shiny device, and people complain about a $600 pricetag.
Why?
Because the computer is SMALL.
Guess what? If anything, you should pay extra for that.
Just because your brain stem equates it with a Snickers bar, LG cell phone, TV remote control or Palm PDA due to its size does not mean its value is anywhere near as low.
The two OS probably have as much as common as say, Windows XP and Windows Mobile
:P
Yeah, I'm a bit skeptical of a full OS X install running on that thing. It would be pretty cool if you could get some type of desktop and actually write apps for the iPhone on the iPhone. I'm probably the only one in the world who would want a feature like that.
Also, for an 'all in one' type device, there is one thing it's missing. Games! I'm not sure what kind of games could work well on a touch screen outside of puzzle/card games, but hopefully there will be a few that run on there.
Am I the only one who was right there with Jobs up until he announced the specs and ...........no tuner card???!!! So basically it's an airport extreme for video. I'm first in line for the phone, but Apple TV? meh
5 hours of talk time. This seems to be in the ballpark of other cellphones.
Uh, Nintendo DS seems to indicate that touch screen games are highly sought after, and profitable.
That's way, way beyond most peoples' price points,
It's only slightly higher than existing smartphones that have fewer features.
and with "only" 4 or 8 gigs of storage, it's roughly useless for the people who WOULD use it.
How do you figure? Most smartphones include less than 1GB of storage, and are at best expandable (at added expense) to about 2GB. The Treo 750, at $399+2 year Cingular contract only includes 128MB.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
Linux is a single unified source base. Pop open a console and go to /usr/src/linux. Architecture-specific code goes in the "arch" folder. On my system I've got code for 28 architectures in the arch folder, averaging about 2mb each. The other 217 megs of shit is platform-independent. That works out to about 1% arch-specific code.
Most distros offer their own patchsets against the main kernel tree, but you can run red hat's 2.6.19 kernel on suse, gentoo, etc etc as long as you build it to use whatever features the operating system requires (udev/devfs/etc) support.
Linux is not maintained as disjoint projects with a shared code base. One central repository (kernel.org) maintains the offical source, and specialists maintain the architecture-specific code.
Neither the arch-specific code nor the patchsets are forks. You probably consider them to be forks because you do not know what a fork is. A fork is when a group of developers copy the code from a project and develop it independently in another direction without any intention to merge back with the main trunk. Arch-specific code is not a fork because it exists as part of the main kernel trunk. Patchsets are not forks because they only exist to be applied against the main trunk. Good patchsets frequently get merged into the trunk anyways.
Considering the fact that it won't be until July 2008 before Microsoft gets games into the Zune, I'd say they're a little backlogged on iPod catch-up features. I'm seriously wondering what happened in the middle of your post, though, because it made lots of sense (or sounded like it, except it took me about 30 seconds to figure out what "visula voice messaging" was supposed to be), until about halfway through point 2.
Sure the phone has sensors (lots of devices do), but I'm sure it will never, ever be intended for them to be used in the way you described. Maybe there will be some kind of hack project to make the iPhone usable as a very basic interface for something, but the basic sensors it has are limited, I'm sure to being useful for their intended design purposes. The Wiimote was designed over a period of years to be used as a controller for the Wii. It's functionality won't be duplicated by a hacked iPhone. And I don't think Microsoft wants to make a controller/phone/Zune that costs as much as its competitors more expensive games console, to attract people to the XBox360. The last thing you want to do is throw your $500 controller for the $400 console at your $2000 plasma. Not to mention the fact that the Wii controller concept works because the Wii was designed around it. Unless Microsoft wants to build a Wii-style console, Wii-style controllers will never sell for it. Look up "Power Glove" and "U-Force" on wikipedia.
The iPhone looks nice. Overpriced and tied to a terrible service provider, but the gadget itself looks cool.
But where's the next-generation iPod? [...] Why does Apple insist on shoving these extra features down our throats at an exorbitant price, offering no alternative?
It IS the next-gen iPod.How many freakkin versions of the iPod does it take for you to consider that you have been offered an alternative? Because iPod, iPod Video, Mini iPod, iPod Shuffle weren't enough, no, you're stuck with only one single choice, which you are forced at gunpoint to buy, no less.
Poor, poor you. How dare Apple design a slick product that will appeal to millions rather than spend their resources designing the product you want, at the price you deem fair? how dare they?
You can't take the sky from me...
Hey, this is a GREAT looking device. But I have this weird feeling it's not a very good phone.
For instance, why is the battery time just 5-16 hours? You mean, you have to keep the thing charged most of the time? Might as well be a laptop, then (and at these prices it pretty much is).
It also seems a little bulky for a phone. It's essentially designed for women with handbags. It's not likely to fit into my pocket without fear it'll break.
My guess is that early adopters will get it and use it, but for the general masses, this won't be something they get for another 6 years, unlike the iPod.
Is it a shock to you that the iPhone is primarily a phone?
It's clearly an iPod second. After all, if you were to have a smartphone without mp3 playing capability, you'd look pretty silly.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
Well, maybe that's why they changed their name from "Apple Computer, Inc." to "Apple, Inc."
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
This is a trend likely to continue.
... but such a genius is probably going to want to work for Apple instead, anyway).
Apple "computer" introductions are now a separate matter. Think about it. In the past, when Apple was (basically) the sole PPC user, they were responsible for everything - of all the PC vendors (HP, Dell et al) they were the only ones designing their own system chipset. Then, it was actually meaningful to introduce such things at major events because there was no visibility otherwise. Now - it's up to Intel, and Intel is generally responsible for and publishes the underlying technology roadmap.
You want to know Apple's "computer" roadmap? Look at Intel's published roadmap. When Intel introduced the Core Duo, you knew more or less Apple was going to introduce Core Duo machines soon after. Same for Core 2 Duo. When Santa Rosa shows up in April, you also know new MB(P)s based on that will show up.
CPU "refreshes" simply aren't important enough to warrant a keynote introduction any more - the intel imac introductions etc were different and important and warranted a macworld keynote introduction because those were the *first* intel macs. all future macs, unless they introduce something new and interesting (or if apple's product lineup has seriously run dry) are unlikely to warrant any further keynote introductions. There's absolutely nothing to stop the Apple.com home page being updated in the future with a "quiet" introduction of octo-core Mac Pros.
But right now - and I think you're seriously underestimating the significance of the iPhone introduction on the players of the phone industry - the iPhone is *it*. It really is what is worth talking about right now.
No matter what their production output is I do not believe the apple stores will be able to keep it in stock. They've staked out the high ground in terms of phone functionality, and all the other players are now left with having to basically compete on price, and higher-cost western producers - that means Motorola and Nokia et al - are NOT going to be able to compete in that space, squeezed between Apple on the top and the upcoming Chinese manufacturers at the bottom. This is a serious disaster for Nokia which has been trying for ages to become a "new computing platform" (didn't they ban their employees from calling their devices "phones"?).
the "fundamental unifying characteristic" of all phones so far has been the keypad, and Apple just decided they weren't going to play there. Considering the careful patent protection apple must have put in place, any alternative implementation of a non-keypad interface must end up being klunky as hell, and there's going to be simply no way for anybody else (and this is going to include Microsoft) to compete (bar some amazing genius in their staff who comes up with a new UI idea completely out of left field
Everybody kept saying "well MS never gets anything right until version 3.0 anyways" when they were comparing the Zune with the iPod. Well, Zune 3.0 can be the perfect MP3 player, but it won't matter, because this is the end of the "plain MP3 player" market dominance. sure they'll still continue to be sold, but the analysts who were talking about iPod sales levelling off or plunging in 2007 were, in fact, correct - but not because it's being taken over by external competition. I've dealt with windows mobile phones. they do not compare in any way with the UI of the iPhone.
The only problem with the iPhone I can think of is basically personal safety. Think of the mugging potential.
Touchscreen Keypads Suck. Horribly.
There is no tactile feel. I can dial a $20 cell phone without having to see or hear it. I've used touchscreen keypads on existing phones already and you have to look when you dial.
And you make it sounds like Apple invented the keypad-less phone. Did you happen to miss the dozen phones that have been out for years now that lack a dial pad?
The iTV / Apple TV... well, aside from the fact that you won't be able to get one for a little while yet, I'm not sure what it'd do for me that I can't already do. Apparently, the marketing went right over my head. Anyone have a summary of why this is an interesting product in a world of tivos, dvrs, frontrow, hi-def dvd and xbox and ps3 and so on? Aside from giving Apple a vector to sell DRM'd movies?
I was wondering the same thing. In fact, I had the same reaction to the iTV that I had to Widgets when they were first announced: this is nice enough, but it seems more like an upgrade to an existing apple product than like a revolutionary new thing.
Then I thought a bit more about the Widget analogy. With hindsight, I can now see the real purpose of Widgets. They're certainly useful on their own, but the long-term purpose of introducing them was to get lots of developers writing useful little stripped down programs--which will now be available on the iPhone. Widgets were what you might call a wedge technology. And Dashborad was just the thin end of that wedge.
So I have to assume that's what iTV is. I'm willing to bet that somewhere in Steve Job's desk is a timeline showing when they'll introduce TiVo like functionality to the AppleTV. (or, for that matter, merge the AppleTV and the iPod into an Archos-like device.) By the time that happens, they'll have had a few generations of experience to work out the basic bugs with the product, and perhaps to develop an ecosystem of third-party software and hardware designed around iTV.
Arr! Read The Government Manual for New Pirates!