Ted's views echo my own. I am first and foremost a Mac user and, while I was excited about the iPhone, I was left a little unsettled that perhaps future development of it as a product in its own right may be sidelined in favour of general products.

However, it is too early to call the shots on Apple's next moves. It is very likely that the iPhone focus was intended to maximise media exposure, which it did exceedingly well. Through the course of my working day, I watch media reports from around the world. The iPhone has stolen a lot of attention. Globally.

I can help you with a few questions:

Will you be able to add your own widgets to the phone, or otherwise modify the phone's software?

No.

How will the software be updated to fix bugs and add new features?

iTunes.

When will there be a version of the widescreen iPod that does not include a phone (replacing the existing iPod with video).

Fall. The question, however, is ’07 or ’08? Depends on whether this option is perceived as decreasing initial demand for the iPhone.

Will there be a version of the iPhone that does not include an iPod?

Probably not. It probably doesn’t cost that much more to add the iPod features to a phone.

although I would say that the new iPhone is more mac like than anything else out there on the market. To me, it would seem that the new iPhone is very close to being a mini tablet mac. All you need is a version of iLife(which it seems many component are already on the phone) and iWork to be on the phone and you could use it as a portable computer. I was thinking that this is the reason why no iLife or iWork package was offered. They are working on an iPhone version.

Neal

They have many employers but perhaps they are not big enough to concentrate fully on more than one major project at a time? Thus, other projects have to be placed more in the background. This doesn't mean that they do not work on the others at all, but I would imagine that they have put a considerable effort to have the iPhone ready enough to be presented at this MacWorld. Along with the Apple TV.
It was perhaps the case last year as well, when people were so disappointed that there were no new iPods at one occasion. I guess the transition to Intel took most of Apple's energy then.
Yes, he could have mentioned more Macrelated products or projects, but these keynotes is more like a show, tightly rehearsed, revised and directed so they are not as much a presentation as that - a show. Like an artist will have to cut down to the marrowbone of a composition, so will Jobs do it with his keynotes.
As for other products; I begun to wonder whether this multi-touch UI won't be implemented in Leopard as well and that may be one of those secrets Jobs wouldn't speak about last time.
If that be the case and if there are also other similar news to Leopard, I can see why they wouldn't water it out by mentioning anything about Leopard this time. This is Apple, remember? This is Jobs, right? The man with the somewhat big ego who loves to make the big splash. See him more as an artist as a businessman delivering a keynote. And artists tend to have big egos...

Unless speech recognition works seamlessly, the iPhone can't stand alone. It's part of a platform - eighter PC or Mac. For the windows folks it works like a good friend whispering every morning: "Hey, come to where the freedom is... !" So this little device is nothing else than another tool to make people switch to Macs (OS X). In my eyes Steves keynote was two hours on Macs.

Dropping 'computer' from Apples name can be misleading to Apple folks. Apple is changing its clothes. The turnaround is over and Steve doesn't want to come along any longer like the looser company from the mac/win-wars. But underneath the clothes Apple is still the computer company eating up important parts of the consumer electronics, the entertainment business and the telecom industry. The new name is a statement: Up from now Apple is going to play in different liga. IBM, Dell, Microsoft – these are the guys from the office automation side in the 20th century.

This said, I ask myself what kind of influence the iPhone is going to have on OS X? Did we see the new finder in the stevenote with widgets instead of databaselike list views and all this ancient stuff? Is the new finder core animated from its core? Is telephony a major feature built in OS X? Is OS X generally resolution independent? Was this the final curtain for 72 dpi on screen? Are we going to use different versions from OS X (ultra mobile, mobile, desktop, server) or only one core with different packages (print or not, drivers or not, server or not)? When do we see the first screen with external card and drivers wirelessly connected to an iPhone?

And last but not least: The name 'iPhone' is wrong. 'iPod' is right. The new iPod is the first ram-only-computer without conventional harddrive designed to be sold in millions. Intel and Samsung have to speed up the production of energy efficent multicore processors and memory chips with 32 and 64 gigabytes, and so on... .

And to the very last: Apple is working hard on speech recognition. Once they will have finished this, the computer is a small device you can talk with and point to with your fingers. And this device is not a computer – it's an Apple!

with buzzin55.

I have maintained for a long time that we need to pay more attention to Apple as a company with a vision. Steve has been described as a visionary; Apple has long been described as being an extension of Steve.

Go ahead, put the two together. Steve often, as on CNBC the other day, says that at Apple, they just like to make stuff they would like to have themselves. It isn't so simple, though.

Steve Jobs, and Apple, have a long term plan. He has dropped hints from time to time about their working on stuff that is 'just too unbelievable' I think he said last year once. He has spoken about the digital hub.

Long term watchers of Apple will recognize what I'm talking about. It's starting to come together, and this week was a large step in that direction.

At some time in the future, Apple will be the manufacturer of a system, not individual products, that will tie together all of the functions we now see as separate, but are really different aspects of communication:

phones, both land and mobile
computers and on line communication
entertainment, including content and how you watch it
lifestyle enablers, now seen in iLife and iWork

Apple wants to tie together all the different functions of communication that you now see as separate so that it all melds into a new, easier, more natural way of interfacing with your technology and the world around you.

You'll carry it with you, it'll follow you, learn to know you, and anticipate your needs and wants so you can concentrate on your chosen lifestyle, not tending with accomplishing separate, disparate functions. In other words, your technology will serve YOU, not the other way around, like it is now.

That, I think, is the Apple dream. With this week's announcements, it is getting closer than ever.

There are just a few things that are missing that would make this a real road warrior machine. If you could use the phone to drive projectors and printers, you would be able to leave your laptop at home for many meetings. One thing that I really think would be usefule would be a pdf reader. That said, this is so cool. Tell me again why I just moved from Cingular to Sprint?

Oh, btw. Just wait till the developers get a hold of the APIs. Can you spell PSP killer?

I also saw this as a Mac keynote.

In fact, running OSX, the iPhone is more Mac than an iPod.

(What will the mini OSX versions be called? Tabby, Siamese, Fur-ball....)

What did strike me was that Steve was speaking so clearly to a non-Mac audience. Though the SMS texting on the iPhone is a beautiful miniturized iChat there was no comparison made to that Mac-only app. WE understood that sound and the visual cues. Windows users just saw something that works like it should and does so with the same delicious colours wowwing us since the first iMac.

The only surprise for me was that, despite repeated (4? 5?) clues during the keynote, the 'One more thing...' was not Paul and Ringo coming out to announce the Beatles back catalogue on iTunes. As it was, for something unannounced, the hints were pretty enormous. You only get cover art with Cover Flow for albums on iTunes (right?). And everytime Cover Flow came up on the screen there was a Beatles album featured. He even played two tracks.

The only argument for seeing this as not a Mac event is that this is, as Steve claimed, the launching of a wholly new devise. The 'Communicator' that we used to watch on Sci-Fi films. It will learn to print out. It will get GPS

'iPhone' is then not its name (relax, Cisco). It just refers to the largest of the markets the devise relates to (thus the graph Steve showed). Nothing more. Something the Mac and non-Mac world understands (because this is bigger than just Windows switchers now, this is about switching people with phones, ANY phone). The 'i' is now a brand name, or product line, bigger than Apple itself. And 'Phone' is one of the devises functions, the one that most sells.

It's name is as yet unknown. It could have been 'Palm'. It could have been 'Newton'. They dreamt of becoming what the iPhone will become. It is thus a whole new step towards this new gadget (which Apple also pioneered): both new hardware AND new software. (Again, Steve's chosen quotes made clear the thinking).

So: not a Mac event, a 'new devise' event, and a 'mini-OSX' event.

Mac was also there though: the synching that will make this rock will flow on Macs and struggle to speak to iTunes on Windows. (Meanwhile Safari may be finaly Windows bound later next year...)

Steve is setting everyone up. June or July will be the big keynote. Everything will come together and thats when IPhone will realy stand out.

rwahrens,

Excellent comment. Fully agree. By the end of his keynote Steve Jobs cited 'I try to skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it is now'

He is a man with an outstanding talent to envision 'where the computer is going to be', and has once and again shown the courage to throtle full speed in that direction, while others try to make the same stuff everybody else does.

Apple came out with color, Visicalc, then the GUI and the Mac. Steve has been always ahead of his time. Shortly after his return to Apple he told about his vision of the computer as the 'digital hub'.

IMHO Steve Jobs' heart is still with his first love back in the '70s, that is, with computers, but he has long seen their future role, and planned accordingly. And he's such a strategy genius too. He has taken the right steps in the right time and direction.

We will continue to see Apple's superior computers. And I expect its strategy to beat Microsof where it hurts: in the OS battlefield. The first milestone will be MS falling under the 90% market share mark, and that will have happened by MacWorld 2009.

Well, I could be wrong.
It could be AppleWorld 2009.

Yes, rwahrens, we share the same view. But it was you, who made an extremely important point: ... Apple is the extension of Steve. It's not important wether it is true or not: The world and all employees at Apple think so.

For the third time in his career Jobs changes the name of a game. A lot of competitors and business people will have to pay for this. And guess what: This makes Steve a moving target now. It is easy to stop the innovation machine of Apple Inc. – eliminate Steve from the board! (A job done by a federal prosecutor on his way to the hall of fame with a secret bank account in Switzerland?)

This is the main reason why Apple and Steve must change their attitude towards core questions of the business. They have to stick to laws and rules more accurate than others. No more option scandals and apologies please! And most of all: Apples PR should show the audience that Apple Inc. is more than the well known Steve Inc.

It's the fundament

I keep checking the headline, it says "MacWorld Keynote... Apple Redefined" as I read this article, expecting to get some useful insight into how Apple talked about being redefined and what it might mean for us all, but I don't see much there. Weird.

Good thing Mr Landau doesn;t run his drafts by me. I would not have been impressed ;->

Personally, I liked the keynote. A lot!

Last year was almost all about the Mac. We got the Intel transition. We got Rosetta. We got new iMacs, MacBooks, MacBook Pros, Mac Pros, and Servers. New versions of iLife, iWork, and all the pro apps.

Who cars about a stand alone camera when 3/4s of Apple's products include built-in iSight cameras? Not me.

For months (nee years) everyone has asked - "what is Apple going to do beyond the iPod?" and "where and what is the iPhone"? Well here it is baby!! And we get it at MacWorld! The core Mac audience gets the news first! If Steve went to CES to launch it and we here at MacWorld got Phil or Tim introcuing a camera how would people feel???!!!!! I can tell you - awful!!!

WHy should Mac users care as much or more about the goings on with Apple and music players and phones? Like, maybe they have injected momentum into the Mac! Maybe the Mac has grown more successful and bold with each new release because of the energy feeding off these new businesses. It matters a lot.

You sound like an Apple II user at the launch of the Mac wihining - "who cares? why can't I get a new form-feed dot-matrix printer!"

Check out the big picture, otherwise you just sound weird to me.

I think the AppleWorld appellation is correct. It is the direction they're moving.

I don't think, like some in the Mac World do, that Micro$oft is dying. But it will change. What Apple is doing will change the computer industry - hell, it'll change the computer itself! A large monopolistic behemoth like Micro$oft will never respond fast enough to dominate a new paradigm such as Apple is building. Like Apple in the 90's, the market will change under their feet, and to survive, you'll see M$ split itself off into different corporations to serve different markets, and in the end, they'll be relegated to a niche market - the Enterprise.

Why? More and more, you hear people talk about the industry going back to dumb terminals, or a new version of that. I think that's the only thing that'll save M$ in the security field.

While the rest of us move into the main part of the 21st century, those that refuse to see the sun rise will get left behind!

One never knows what the Feds are going to do.

I don't believe that your scenario regarding Swiss bank accounts will happen. I work for the Feds, and seeing that is really rare. It happens, but not as much as Hollywood would have you believe.

That said, it could go either way. On one hand, a LOT of CEOs are in the same boat as Steve, and have had absolutely NO attention or consequences occur.

On the other hand, the SEC could decide to make an example.

The key here is that the SEC, like most Feds, usually go after the low hanging fruit; the liars, the dishonest, the ones that don't cooperate, the ones it's easy to prove a serious felony.

Apple has, at least on the surface, cooperated. They made the first announcement, they caught the error, they investigated (twice!), and they are supposedly cooperating now with the SEC official investigation. Assuming that is accurate, and such cooperation continues and the SEC doesn't find some smoking gun swept under a rug somewhere in Cupertino, well, I'd guess it'll blow over.

If that's wrong, then we're in for some interesting times (as in that old Chinese curse)!!

Oh, and don't believe what some idiots out here will try to make you believe. Not the SEC, nor anybody else in the Federal Government, has the right to remove Steve as CEO of Apple. Only the Board of Directors can do that! If they wanted him to run Apple from a jail cell in Kansas, they could let him do it.

I agree that saying Micro$oft is dying is a bit strong (hey, my keycaps a-g-r-e are starting to wear out). A split, yes. Like the Roman Empire surviving for a few centuries, M$ will be slowly bleeding for some time.

This war is like chess. First, a good position has to be gained, and the enemy's mobility has to be checked. Cutting the supply lines is good too, like MacArthur did in Inchon.

The iPhone is not only a ground-breaking product. It's also a brilliant strategy move. Same as with the iPod, it'll start penetrating the cell phone market with new models. But, most important, it'll start penetrating the minds of the Windows crowd.

'Your life in your pocket' will have millions of people sympathize with baby-OSX wondering at how good it is. Good Safary promotion too. Halo (Rev.2) will bring new converts by the millions to the Mac fold.

I don't think SJ hates money. But I think he really is after Micro$oft. Defeating Windows will make his big day. And it's coming a little closer.

I liked the editorial looking at the bigger picture rather than just falling to the "iPhone" hype. The "iPhone" is a nice new product that will either change the world in the way the Model T did or in the way the Segway did, I really can't decide which.

So much of the speech was taken up by Phone and the Phone sure looked cool, but it is a PDA that showed no MSOffice support, no VPN support, and will be available from only a single carrier until the end of 2007 - with a two-year commitment to a Cellular company with below standard data support.

Jobs declared that he wants to take over a niche market (High End SmartPhones - 5% of the Mobile Phone market) I just wanted more.

Nice article, nice thread.

Besides the occasional bouts of shaking my head at this new device (this is a PHONE!) with my prehistoric and well-hated RAZR sitting next to me, the idea that I couldn't shake might relate to the multi_touch approach. Every trackpad is now obsolete. Apple drops "computer" and OWC releases what could arguably be the first piece of Mac-based hardware Apple had nothing to do with. Perhaps it is a new era, with competition for the hardware end of things being led, rather than controlled by Apple? I never really got a sense that Power Computing et al were doing damage to Apple.

Anyway, I also agree this is just the beginning. Add an iSight and a few more traditional cel-based things like voice commands and walkie talkie functions, along with the ability to print and perhaps a cradle/speakerphone, and you have a full blown Star Trek communicator and a revolutionary device that makes the iPod look rather meager.

I just gobbled up 2 hours of keynote and am hungry for more...

As a prospective new MAC buyer... Watching the expectation and the past behavior... I am not impressed with MAC support. My decision was to wait until Ilife and Ilife '07 came out to buy the MAC (assuming the free upgrade to Leopard). But now, I dont see investing into a computer that may not be heavily supported as I once beleived.

In the vien of the article and comments.... It appears the IPhone (or MACPhone) may overtake Apple's interest. Also, with Apple as just another computer maker... Maybe I should go to a cheaper and Microsoft Vista solution.

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anovelli wrote:
Nice article, nice thread.

Besides the occasional bouts of shaking my head at this new device (this is a PHONE!)

This statement reminds me of the consensus on the announcement of the iPod back in October of 2001: "It's only an MP3 player." We all know how short-sighted that viewpoint was. This is much MORE than just a phone. It's the future of the company and the industry as a whole. Just wait and see, you'll be stunned at where it's going to go.

It's much more than just a phone? Multi-touch may be the wave of the future, but this is A PHONE, and not a good one. It isn't that I'm not excited about the future of this OS and input mechanism, it's that this is not an implementation that interests me and MacWorld should offer better products.

AppleTV is like a eunuch without a drive or recording capability.

The Phone won't be available to most of the world until next Macworld.

It is a lackluster announcement, "Hey, in six months, Cingular will be releasing a product that we here at Apple - Did you notice the new name? - are really excited about: The Best Smartphone in the world!"

The Best Smartphone in the world is still a smartPHONE, they need to get this OS into something for the rest of the world quickly.

Lets compare and contrast!

Apple Computer, Inc.

*Chairman* Jobs from the '80s

1. Real artists ship.
2. It's better to be a pirate than join the navy.
3. Mac in a book by 1986.

(Thank you folklore.org... good reading if I might suggest)

and now...

Apple, Inc.

CEO Jobs

1. Now artists slip.
-Note the lack of items available immediately after the keynote, and any of the meager Macintosh offerings going under the radar.

2. It's better to join the navy than being a pirate.
-Changing the name to Apple, Inc. appeases the shareholders (navy) while making no difference to the customer (pirates... no offense, I like pirates. Another term I could use is "the rest of us.").

3. Macintosh in a (pine) box by 2010 (or 20xx).
-Boy, those "Welcome to 2007" banners sure do look an awful lot like "Apple II Forever" banners now, don't they? It might be many more years (not 2010), but I can see the day when Macintosh development slows, then stops, while Macintosh models dwindle in numbers until the entire line is 86ed (and not "in a book" way). Yes, all product lines must come to an end, but why does it have to be because the line in question takes even a smidgen of luster (the Apple II still sold well for years after the Macintosh came out) from the new "golden child" (consumer electronics)?

The name change really sums it up for me. 1.9.07 might be remembered as the day Apple stopped kicking ass and started kissing a$$... in one way and/or the other.

-A Macintosh user

Why does everybody assume that, since Apple changed their name to Apple Inc., the Macintosh computer is suddenly a thing of the past? The name change reflects their expansion as a company. At no time did they say that they would abandon the personal computer. Just like General Motors makes more than just motors, Apple makes more than just computers.

I do not think Apple is getting OUT of the hardware business, nor am I sure there is necessarily a lot of significance in OWC releasing the ModBook. I just wonder if some other hardware stuff is on the horizon from different sources. It's probably as useless to discuss as the predictions before this show were.

Overall I could hardly disagree more about Apple being a sellout or anything else here. They just released a device that represents a quantum leap forward on many, but hardly all fronts. It has features and technology that is applicable back to desktop and laptops, which will in turn move those further beyond anything any hardware manufacturer currently makes. And when the feature set expands, there won't even be a comparison with CE machines or any other smartphone.

I'm very excited about the possibilities, and look forward to better and better stuff soon.

P.S. Anyone using CrossMac?

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Guest wrote:
IYou only get cover art with Cover Flow for albums on iTunes (right?).

Cover Flow works with the chosen album art you have associated with a song, video, etc., regardless of the source. Some of my albums are not on the iTunes Store, so I've either gotten cover art from another source or scanned the CD info/cover sheet and added those to the songs & videos on iTunes. In some cases, I made my own.

Quote

roddor wrote:
rwahrens,
Apple came out with color, Visicalc, then the GUI and the Mac. Steve has been always ahead of his time.

Apple didn't "come out with" Visicalc. VisiCalc was invented by Dan Bricklin, with help from Bob Frankston. Apple didn't develop or own it.

Quote

Guest wrote:


AppleTV is like a eunuch without a drive or recording capability.

Perhaps you should read the specs for the Apple TV. It has a 40 GB hard drive. As for recording, why? There are lots of Digital Video recorders available. I have a Toshiba DVD Recorder with a hard drive.

If you want to use a Mac, get a Mac Mini & one of Elgato's or Miglia's products, for example. Add a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse and you have 1) a Mac in your living room; 2) a DVD player; 3) DV recorder; 4) email, web, etc., on your widescreen TV; and so on. The Apple TV has a limited purpose. There is no Mac available that has component or HDMI output. (You can get DVI-HDMI cables, but you'll have to also use analog audio or TOSLINK optical audio cables.)

Intruder: Maybe they should change their name to General, Inc.?

My opinion is that Apple Computer, Inc. would have been just as insanely successful with their products as Apple, Inc. will be, without pissing off old (31) farts like myself that grew up fondly with the former. Sony is a consumer electronics company that also makes computers... yawn. But, Apple Computer was a computer company that made some neat consumer electronics... cool, who'd have thought?

Seriously, I've read alot of comments that suggest that its a good thing that the iPhone only works on Cingular, so that Apple only has to play by one specific set of rules instead of having to fiddle with every provider's small or great differences in tech. One could say that this is controlling some of extension of user interface/experience, but imagine if on the original Macintosh only CompuServe could be used? Well, maybe I should say Macintosh Plus since the original Macs (thought awesome) needed more memory and other enhancements and therefore had enough holding it back. This comparison may or may not be more relevant: what if the original iPod couldn't play MP3s? So we have an iPhone locked into Cingular. Only Apple, Inc. would be so bottom line. Apple Computer, Inc. would have made an open phone.

-A Macintosh user

I suspect that they made a deal with Cingular because Cingular may have subsidized some of the development. In addition, Cingular made changes on their side to make the random access voicemail to work.

I would be happy if they made it an unlocked phone.

Quote

roddor wrote:
rwahrens,
Apple came out with color, Visicalc, then the GUI and the Mac. Steve has been always ahead of his time.

Apple didn't "come out with" Visicalc. VisiCalc was invented by Dan Bricklin, with help from Bob Frankston. Apple didn't develop or own it.[/quote]

English is not my first language so I may have made a mistake here if 'coming out with something' is necessarily associated with 'developing' or 'creating'. I'm using the expression in the same way that I would say 'Apple came out with USB' because it took the lead and pioneered this standard. Likewise, Apple pioneered Visicalc because of this visionary talent of Mr. Jobs.

Apple TV is a eunuch because

Quote

gslusher wrote:

The Apple TV has a limited purpose.

That's exactly it! It's a hardware iTunes for TV. If it took the place of one of my high-def devices, I could add it to my TV.