“For several years now, an elite squad of engineers at Apple Computer have been working diligently to perfect an intuitive smart phone concept that would both conform to the company’s integrated model and oblige chief executive Steve Jobs,” Kasper Jade and Prince McLean report for AppleInsider.
“As AppleInsider has been told, it’s the latter of those two feats that has thus far presented the utmost of challenges, largely preserving the project and its many facets behind the fortified walls of the company’s Cupertino, Calif. home base,” Jade and McLean report.
“It’s believed that the initiative, which is different and slightly more ambitious than the company’s ‘iPhone’ project, truly gained momentum about three years ago alongside the development of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Some of the device’s original features, such as Bluetooth remote control of certain Mac OS X functions, were meant to coincide with those that would have subsequently appeared in the final version of the Tiger operating system,” Jade and McLean report.
Jade and McLean report, “People familiar with ensuing talks say the ‘real push’ behind the device was its extensive integration with Mac OS X and the Macintosh platform. Apple is said to have demonstrated several features that called upon a still unreleased version of the company’s .Mac internet services that would allow users to control certain Mac functions remotely. These included beaming contacts, tasks and calendar appointments to Address Book and iCal from remote locations. However, the Mac maker remained mum on whether it planned to release Windows compatible versions of those desktop applications.”
Much more, including info regarding full integration with iChat, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Rainy Day” and “LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
According to rumors, there are two Apple phones: Apple’s slim phone (“iPhone”) which is expected to be available for sale late in the first quarter of next year or early in the second quarter and the phone discussed in the above AppleInsider article: a smartphone to follow in the third quarter of 2007.
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Not that I even have to say this…
But this thing had better be *really* goddam cool.
-c
MW: ‘age’ (old fables)
Most smart phones are garbage, even if some people can’t live without them. Would be nice to see something everybody could use without feeling too executive, lol.
I love my treo and I hate it. I love having all my contacts and my calander. I love the camera and video, but hate the media integration and buying ring tones. I hate the slow as a snail, doesn’t always work $45 missing sync software I have to use. I hope this smart phone sees the light of day. I don’t care if it is $500 bucks, I will buy one in minutes, do’nt care if I have to change carrier, I want the os x experience in my phone..Please please let this one be true…
I can hold out with my current RAZR until the smart-phone version comes out. That is unless the first version is too cool to resist. I like the way Jobs sends the engineers back to the drawing board until his 10-point list is complete. I wish I had minions like that.
“..buying ring tones”?? That’s sad, really sad “Reality” Check.
Sounding like the iPhones are going to be the business.
Looks like 2007…is going to be a good year.
MacOS X on non-computer devices sounds like Windows Mobile done right – the interface is all important and Apple has shown with FrontRow and iTV that they are willing to sacrifice the Aqua interface to get the best interface for the job. I never understood the Start and hierarchical menus on a PDA, except to save retraining and further entrench the Windows-psyche.
I hope with the iPhone I can finally change some items in my calendar (add a new meeting), address book (inter-squirt our contact details) or [DELETED BY MDN] an ‘Onion Radio News’ podcast to my kids with a device that will finally have critical mass.
Plus it would be good if the iPhone doubled as a remote control for my iMac media centre running EyeTV (or soon iTV) so I can jump straight to the right channel with the iPhone keypad without having to press up/down twenty times.
Magic word ‘light’ as in “In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.”
Can we agree to never, ever again allow the word “SQUIRT” to be used in relation to an Apple product?
It is a M$ patented word for describing functionality of its little, shit brown Zune which “squirts” all over the user’s “social” contacts (Wow, that’s friendship, for ya!). And that’s where it’s use ends.
Common MDN, where is the editing?
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Hmm. So, I will be able to communicate with my Mac through my phone. Will I be able to control my Mac remotely? How about my domicile? What sorts of things will we talk about?
Maczealot: Hi, Mac. What’s up.
Mac: All is well, boss.
Maczealot: Give me a staus report.
Mac: I have three new e-mails from Tammy, Mark, and Bob. Also, I have one new e-mail from work. None are priority messages. Interior temperature is 25.6 degrees.
Maczealot: Open Tammy’s mail, please.
Mac: Very well..
(Pause)
Maczealot: Listen, I’m going to be home a little late. I like you to do a few things for me.
Mac: I’m here for ya.
Maczealot: I need a download of (insert iTunes tunes and movie list).
Mac: OK, got it.
Maczealot: I should be home at 18:00. Would you start (insert play list favorite) at 18:00?
Mac: Will do.
Maczealot: Adjust thermostat to 22 degrees now and start preheat of oven to 175 at 17:55.
Mac: OK.
Maczealot: Start drip irrigation at 15:00 and run for 45 minutes.
Mac: Alright. Anything else today, boss?
Maczealot: No. Did I ever say how much I appreciate you.
Mac: Every day, boss.
Maczealot: Talk with ya later.
Mac: Any time.
Many months ago — perhaps half a year or more — I posted on MDN that developers needed an SDK so that they could get at the iPod as a platform. And here it is, in the iPhone, and it is OS X based. This is fabulous. The iPod and iPhone can now be morphed into whatever the creative developers can dream up. And Apple will rake in the profits from hardware sales and retail profits from 3rd party software and accessories from sales by Apple’s retailing operations.
2007 will be a historic year for Apple and a turning point for the whole consumer electronics industry. I have got to get some 401K money rolled over into an IRA and converted to AAPL to add to my already substantial investment. The upside potential is staggering and I view the downside risk, over the next year or two, as quite small. I do not trade with leverage, as do some folks. For me, that would be too risky. But in the long term AAPL is a fabulous investment vehicle and I am on board for a long ride.
The AAPL choo-choo is about to leave the station.
“For several years now, an elite squad of engineers at Apple Computer have been working diligently to perfect…”
Sounds like the opening of a good comic book.
Hope it’s true. This would be another time when Apple has used a system that they’ve created. While they made some cool stuff in the past, there wasn’t the same sort of overall integration between the device and the OS. If it does come out, it’s going to be VERY popular.
Wish I had more money to buy stock.
So what I’m hearing is this thing won’t run Windows Mobile. Whatever. You know Apple is just gonna do a half-assed copy of Windows Mobile. Already been done Apple!
You want a phone done right? Get a Palm with Windows Mobile. Pure magic. You think Zune + Zune Markeplace is awesome? Wait ’til you try Palm + Windows Mobile.
Move along, nothing to see here.
People Ready.
Apple would not release one phone and say the other one is coming later, knowing everyone would wait til the second one comes out.
Regarding making it Windows friendly or not…
This is a tough one for Apple. Of course they stand to loose a significant market in the short run, but with the track record of the iPod well entrenched into world market place history, (history still in the making mind you) Apple just might decide that, if people want to integrate their iPhone with their computer its gonna have to be a Mac.
At the very least I’d like to see them not do anything for Windows for at least a year after its released.
…Just to remind the public where the really desirable, useful, well designed, and stylish computers and computer peripherals are really coming from.
whaaaaang…
daaaaaaang…
sweet zune tang
.
.
.
Bam!!!
.
.
.
Reality_Check, I agree with you. I have a Treo700P. Great features, lousy product. I can FINALLY have a phone that integrates with my iCal and Addressbook, but had to buy additional software as you mentioned to make it work well (Missing Sync) and have to put up with a very slow, buggy, constantly crashing phone. I WILL spend $400-500 to get Apple’s phone if it is a replacement for the Treo.
Now, will I be able to do some basic Word and Excel work on it as well??