The iPhone can play music in three clicks. The iPhone UI automatically rotates the screen when you rotate the display. The iPhone UI resizes the text to fill the screen when you double-click on a text-container.
The innovation here (and the invention) is a new UI. In 1984 Apple released the first WiMP (windows/mouse/pointer) system widely accepted by the world after first purchasing the rights to it from Xerox in exchange for stock options.
In 2007 Apple has released the first multitouch UI widely accepted by the world after purchasing Touchstream. It has gestures (which other systems have had, such as Opera), it has multitouch (which other systems have had), and it has a touchscreen (which other systems have had). What Apple has done is integrate all of it, and well.
You're talking about persistent web browsing isn't worth paying attention to, and I agree. The feature of anywhere internet is not "invention of the year" material. I never claimed it was.
What I was talking about was the iPhone's UI. I've never seen anything like it and it is about as revolutionary as the original Mac's window/mouse/pointer interface (even if Apple did buy it from Xerox).
Yes, tablets have been around for a while, but tablets have a totally different touch you: Your finger or stylus acts like a mouse pointer and the UI itself is identical to a normal WiMP interface. The difference between the WiMP and iPhone interface is that the UI scales to focus on the object you are looking at (double tap text, for example, on a web page and the container for that text zooms to the width of the screen. You can also pinch a picture to zoom out, or when you select a UI element it zooms to fill the screen).
Then there is the predictive keyboard, which combines a spellcheck engine with a typo engine to more accurately predict what you are trying to type. I wish that was available on my DESKTOP system at home!
Finally there is the fingertip; there is no cursor, the P in WiMP. Your finger is the cursor and with multitouch you can have multiple cursors/touches on the screen. This enables a very broad expressive gesture interface that Apple has only started to tap with the iPhone.
How can you say "No benefit beyond aesthetics" to these tradeoffs? 1) Lack of tactile keyboard translates to smaller device with larger battery. 2) All in one PCs means smaller footprint, smaller PCs 3) Slim notebooks also translates to increase in use because smaller laptops are easier to carry than larger laptops 4) iTunes ignorance of audio organized by folder is not an aesthetic choice, it's an engineering one. It would require the program to constantly scan and rescan the folders every time it launched, and even while running, because there would be no database of files populated via ID3 tags. Or... it could insert ID3 tags based on folders and then use that instead, and then you would complain that iTunes is modifying your music.
Think of the iPhone today and the computer of 10 years from now.
Time is probably thinking the iPhone, today, is like the original Mac or Lisa 25 years ago. In that sense, the iPhone is likely to dictate how all computing will occur in 10 years.
If they are right, then it does qualify as invention of the year.
If the problem is handwriting recognition, then obviously the solution is not to rely on it.
I'm sure the technology will be present, but I suspect, given their recent experience with multi-touch, that a full sized multitouch keyboard will be present instead. Instead of fighting the "better tablet" game, Apple should move onto the next arena: better handheld computer game, which they have already demonstrated a strong opening move with the iPhone.
Why should there be any exclusion? Apple has plenty of BSD/Apache/GNU styled open source in their OS suite. What would stop Apple from adopting the Android platform on top of OS X for their February SDK?
Why does it matter, now, to a consumer buying a $300 gadget to read email, view pictures, browse the web, etc, that it is open or closed? If a person is to decide between buying a PC vs buying a cell phone, what does the open platform matter if it doesn't make the device more usable, more affordable, or more attractive?
It will matter when the device is end of lifed in four years and the user wants to keep the device to extend it's useful lifespan... but even in the US there is a car culture where you get a new vehicle every four years!
So? Why does that difference matter? I suspect the majority of users/owners don't care about openess, they care about convenience, price, performance, and features.
What? You are saying the beneficial offshoots are overshadowed by the military applications?
Like GPS for universal navigation? Or MRIs through advanced understanding of nuclear forces? Or satellite based telescopes or long distance long running space probes?
Humans have long had the capability to savage other humans without scientific progress. Don't think scientific progress is the bad guy here, it's people, for as long back as we've had the story of Cain and Abel.
No, what happens is that the entire music library gets downloaded, eventually, stripped, and shared.
Then no one would subscribe to Napster, and they would die.
Why doesn't this happen with, say, iTunes? It too will probably happen, but because you have to pay so much more ($1 per song, nominally), downloading and sharing the entire library will cost about $3b, while downloading and sharing all of Napster will probably cost only a couple thousand.
It hurts Apple's Mac sales if that unlocked OS X sale was originally going to be a Mac sale. Unlike the RIAA argument, this isn't about free vs non-free. This is about $300 margin on a $1100 MacBook vs a $120 margin on a box of OS X.
There are some people who would buy a box but never get a Mac; this is a bonus sale. There are some people who would buy a box+cheaper PC that would have bought a Mac; this is a lost sale. There are some people who would never buy a Mac, nor a box, but will pirate the box. This is not a lost sale.
The best, neutral, path would be: Sell Macs as normal. Sell OS X for $199 a box. Sell stripped down unit designed to go with box for $499.
You can copy boxes of software trivially enough. You can't copy Mac minis.
So it's not equivalent to "half" a Mac mini, it's equivalent to a single copy of OS X being used on several PCs instead of one Mac...
In other words, the opportunity cost of a sale of OS X is equivalent to a Mac mini because Apple's profit margin is maintained despite the software being used several times over.
Windows is proof that this happens, even WITH product activation.
No, you misunderstand. I do not assert that every OS X sale replaces a sale of a new Mac.
I assert that, today, Apple has 8.1% of new PC sales and 2m OS X sales in 4 days.
If an unlocked PC compatible OS X is released, Apple's Mac sales will drop to something less than 8.1% of new sales while OS X sales will go up for use on both previous Macs and new PCs that Apple did not sell.
Obviously some fraction of unlocked OS X will be used on non Apple PCs, correct?
So each copy of unlocked OS sold for use on a non Mac has to be profitable in it's own right AND make up for the loss of profit from a Mac sale.
This can be done in two ways: Increase in volume or increase in price.
As a matter of public record, Apple's gross profit margin is 30%.
Even if software was 100% profit, a $129 box of OS X vs a $329 profit on a MacBook or iMac means you would need triple the current sales to make the endeavor worthwhile. Only double if you boosted the box copy price to $199.
That's not a good enough reason to sell an "unlocked" version though. Apple's marketshare is growing even without this tactic; 5% last year, 8% this year, 12% next year... at this rate Apple may well hit 30% within 10 years without any help at all.
The only good reason to sell an "unlocked" version is more profit, and a $399 pricepoint for "Ultimate OS X" sounds reasonable.
You misunderstand. I'm talking about OS sales replacing Mac sales, not covering development costs.
If a box of OS X is sold (and pirated thrice) instead of a Mac being bought, the cost of the OS has to be roughly equivalent to the profit relealized by the Mac sale.
They would probably lose money unless they charged $300 per copy of the OS.
It's not hard to do the math: Take their current earnings per Mac and then the projected earnings per copy of OS X. How many boxes of OS X would you have to sell in order to equal a Mac sale?
If they get, average, $250 per Mac, then two copies of OS X at current prices would be required to break even. So if all Mac sales die, overnight, they would need to jump up to something like 16% US or 7% worldwide to make up the difference. To make it a profitable endeavor, therefore, they would need to sell 3 copies of OS X... or 32% US/10% worldwide.
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The iPhone can play music in three clicks.
:)
The iPhone UI automatically rotates the screen when you rotate the display.
The iPhone UI resizes the text to fill the screen when you double-click on a text-container.
The innovation here (and the invention) is a new UI. In 1984 Apple released the first WiMP (windows/mouse/pointer) system widely accepted by the world after first purchasing the rights to it from Xerox in exchange for stock options.
In 2007 Apple has released the first multitouch UI widely accepted by the world after purchasing Touchstream. It has gestures (which other systems have had, such as Opera), it has multitouch (which other systems have had), and it has a touchscreen (which other systems have had). What Apple has done is integrate all of it, and well.
Someone else did have something similar in 2006:
http://www.irconnect.com/noc/press/pages/news_releases.mhtml?d=106083
A 45" multitouch table. Apple's solution is more widespread and more portable
Really? Multitouch UI? No cursor? Gestures? Scaleable UI?
I can't think of a single device that had a scaleable multitouch UI before the iPhone. Pray tell which one you know of.
We are talking about two different things here.
You're talking about persistent web browsing isn't worth paying attention to, and I agree. The feature of anywhere internet is not "invention of the year" material. I never claimed it was.
What I was talking about was the iPhone's UI. I've never seen anything like it and it is about as revolutionary as the original Mac's window/mouse/pointer interface (even if Apple did buy it from Xerox).
Yes, tablets have been around for a while, but tablets have a totally different touch you: Your finger or stylus acts like a mouse pointer and the UI itself is identical to a normal WiMP interface. The difference between the WiMP and iPhone interface is that the UI scales to focus on the object you are looking at (double tap text, for example, on a web page and the container for that text zooms to the width of the screen. You can also pinch a picture to zoom out, or when you select a UI element it zooms to fill the screen).
Then there is the predictive keyboard, which combines a spellcheck engine with a typo engine to more accurately predict what you are trying to type. I wish that was available on my DESKTOP system at home!
Finally there is the fingertip; there is no cursor, the P in WiMP. Your finger is the cursor and with multitouch you can have multiple cursors/touches on the screen. This enables a very broad expressive gesture interface that Apple has only started to tap with the iPhone.
How can you say "No benefit beyond aesthetics" to these tradeoffs?
1) Lack of tactile keyboard translates to smaller device with larger battery.
2) All in one PCs means smaller footprint, smaller PCs
3) Slim notebooks also translates to increase in use because smaller laptops are easier to carry than larger laptops
4) iTunes ignorance of audio organized by folder is not an aesthetic choice, it's an engineering one. It would require the program to constantly scan and rescan the folders every time it launched, and even while running, because there would be no database of files populated via ID3 tags. Or... it could insert ID3 tags based on folders and then use that instead, and then you would complain that iTunes is modifying your music.
Maybe you have no sense of perspective.
Think of the iPhone today and the computer of 10 years from now.
Time is probably thinking the iPhone, today, is like the original Mac or Lisa 25 years ago. In that sense, the iPhone is likely to dictate how all computing will occur in 10 years.
If they are right, then it does qualify as invention of the year.
If the problem is handwriting recognition, then obviously the solution is not to rely on it.
I'm sure the technology will be present, but I suspect, given their recent experience with multi-touch, that a full sized multitouch keyboard will be present instead. Instead of fighting the "better tablet" game, Apple should move onto the next arena: better handheld computer game, which they have already demonstrated a strong opening move with the iPhone.
Like using Open Source, right?
Apache, gcc, BSD, CUPS, dtrace, KHTML, and OpenGL all come to mind.
The fact that Eric Schmidt is on Apple's board AND uses an iPhone doesn't hurt either.
Why should there be any exclusion? Apple has plenty of BSD/Apache/GNU styled open source in their OS suite. What would stop Apple from adopting the Android platform on top of OS X for their February SDK?
You still haven't answered the question.
Why does it matter, now, to a consumer buying a $300 gadget to read email, view pictures, browse the web, etc, that it is open or closed? If a person is to decide between buying a PC vs buying a cell phone, what does the open platform matter if it doesn't make the device more usable, more affordable, or more attractive?
It will matter when the device is end of lifed in four years and the user wants to keep the device to extend it's useful lifespan... but even in the US there is a car culture where you get a new vehicle every four years!
So? Why does that difference matter? I suspect the majority of users/owners don't care about openess, they care about convenience, price, performance, and features.
What? You are saying the beneficial offshoots are overshadowed by the military applications?
Like GPS for universal navigation? Or MRIs through advanced understanding of nuclear forces? Or satellite based telescopes or long distance long running space probes?
Humans have long had the capability to savage other humans without scientific progress. Don't think scientific progress is the bad guy here, it's people, for as long back as we've had the story of Cain and Abel.
No, what happens is that the entire music library gets downloaded, eventually, stripped, and shared.
Then no one would subscribe to Napster, and they would die.
Why doesn't this happen with, say, iTunes? It too will probably happen, but because you have to pay so much more ($1 per song, nominally), downloading and sharing the entire library will cost about $3b, while downloading and sharing all of Napster will probably cost only a couple thousand.
It hurts Apple's Mac sales if that unlocked OS X sale was originally going to be a Mac sale. Unlike the RIAA argument, this isn't about free vs non-free. This is about $300 margin on a $1100 MacBook vs a $120 margin on a box of OS X.
There are some people who would buy a box but never get a Mac; this is a bonus sale.
There are some people who would buy a box+cheaper PC that would have bought a Mac; this is a lost sale.
There are some people who would never buy a Mac, nor a box, but will pirate the box. This is not a lost sale.
The best, neutral, path would be:
Sell Macs as normal.
Sell OS X for $199 a box.
Sell stripped down unit designed to go with box for $499.
No, you just need Apple to label your computer for you :)
You can copy boxes of software trivially enough. You can't copy Mac minis.
So it's not equivalent to "half" a Mac mini, it's equivalent to a single copy of OS X being used on several PCs instead of one Mac...
In other words, the opportunity cost of a sale of OS X is equivalent to a Mac mini because Apple's profit margin is maintained despite the software being used several times over.
Windows is proof that this happens, even WITH product activation.
No, you misunderstand. I do not assert that every OS X sale replaces a sale of a new Mac.
I assert that, today, Apple has 8.1% of new PC sales and 2m OS X sales in 4 days.
If an unlocked PC compatible OS X is released, Apple's Mac sales will drop to something less than 8.1% of new sales while OS X sales will go up for use on both previous Macs and new PCs that Apple did not sell.
Obviously some fraction of unlocked OS X will be used on non Apple PCs, correct?
So each copy of unlocked OS sold for use on a non Mac has to be profitable in it's own right AND make up for the loss of profit from a Mac sale.
This can be done in two ways: Increase in volume or increase in price.
As a matter of public record, Apple's gross profit margin is 30%.
Even if software was 100% profit, a $129 box of OS X vs a $329 profit on a MacBook or iMac means you would need triple the current sales to make the endeavor worthwhile. Only double if you boosted the box copy price to $199.
That's not a good enough reason to sell an "unlocked" version though. Apple's marketshare is growing even without this tactic; 5% last year, 8% this year, 12% next year... at this rate Apple may well hit 30% within 10 years without any help at all.
The only good reason to sell an "unlocked" version is more profit, and a $399 pricepoint for "Ultimate OS X" sounds reasonable.
You misunderstand. I'm talking about OS sales replacing Mac sales, not covering development costs.
If a box of OS X is sold (and pirated thrice) instead of a Mac being bought, the cost of the OS has to be roughly equivalent to the profit relealized by the Mac sale.
That is the best suggestion I've heard. But in Apple style, the full retail "unlocked" version would have to be $399.
Fine, an iMac will probably be available in 2010 for $800 :P
How is your suggestion any different than the existing situation?
Well, if you wait a few more years, when MacBooks hit $500 and Mac minis are $250, you should be able to get a Mac for only a $80 premium :)
Are you seriously suggesting that 30% of the US population would switch to Mac if the OS was available for general use? I can see 15%, but not 30%.
They would probably lose money unless they charged $300 per copy of the OS.
It's not hard to do the math: Take their current earnings per Mac and then the projected earnings per copy of OS X. How many boxes of OS X would you have to sell in order to equal a Mac sale?
If they get, average, $250 per Mac, then two copies of OS X at current prices would be required to break even. So if all Mac sales die, overnight, they would need to jump up to something like 16% US or 7% worldwide to make up the difference. To make it a profitable endeavor, therefore, they would need to sell 3 copies of OS X... or 32% US/10% worldwide.