“When Steve Jobs introduced the Mac back in 1984, I was seated in the second row at a packed Flint Center Theatre. I remember sitting there waiting for Jobs to take the stage and unveil what he had promised would change the world of computing. Indeed, as he lifted the white sheet off the little Mac and its computer voice said ‘hello’ to the audience, the crowd went crazy. That day Apple shook the computing world with its Mac and the famous ’1984′ Orwellian ad, and the company introduced us to event marketing,” Tim Bajarin writes for PC Magazine.

Steve Jobs introduces the Apple Macintosh in 1984:

Bajarin continues, “[Jobs] redefined what a computer should look like with the candy-colored iMacs and the all-in-one flat Macs, and then came the wildly successful iPod and iTunes. It’s not an understatement to say that Apple’s impact on the PC and music player markets has been significant, and if history is a guide, today’s announcements should go down as equally important and in some ways could be viewed again as industry game changers.”

Bajarin writes, “One such game changer is the new Apple TV… which will work on a Mac or a PC, has many of the consumer electronics and PC folks quite concerned that Apple could do an iPod on them. That means that they could deliver a solution that is so easy to use and works so well around an Apple based eco-system that even though there will be other solutions on the market that do something similar, Apple could end up with the lions share of this business. More importantly, they could use this to edge many of the CE and PC vendors out of what will be a very lucrative market over time. My personal opinion is that the CE and PC guys have something serious to worry about… Apple could become the leader in this space almost overnight.”

“A similar thing could be happening with the intro of the [iPhone] … In typical Apple fashion, the Apple folks have now created a radical new finger-driven UI and given this device the famous Apple ease of use and applied it to what is not only a smart phone, but should be branded in a new category all by itself called brilliant phones… Apple’s new iPhone, like the iPod, will be an industry game changer and define a whole new generation of how cell phones should perform and look like in the near future. As Steve Jobs said in his keynote ‘Apple has reinvented the cell phone’ and at first glance, this appears to be a very true statement.”

Full article here.
Beyond being seriously worried, the CE and PC guys should be embarrassed to boot.

Related articles:
Apple premieres Apple TV: movies, TV shows, music & photos on your big screen TV – January 09, 2007
Time: ‘iPhone could crush cell phone market pitilessly beneath the weight of its own superiority’ – January 09, 2007
Analyst: Apple iPhone should be given its own category – ‘brilliantphone’ – January 09, 2007
Cingular to use Synchronoss Technologies’ platform for Apple iPhone – January 09, 2007
Is Apple building ‘The Device?’ [revisited] – January 09, 2007
iPhone photos from Apple’s Macworld Expo booth – January 09, 2007
Enderle: Apple’s iPhone is going to do very well – January 09, 2007
Apple debuts iPhone: touchscreen mobile phone + widescreen iPod + Internet communicator – January 09, 2007

The Register’s Ray: Apple ‘iPhone’ will fail – December 26, 2006
Analyst: Apple iPhone economics aren’t that compelling – December 08, 2006
CNET editor Kanellos: ‘Apple iPhone will largely fail’ – December 07, 2006
Palm CEO laughs off Apple ‘iPhone’ threat – November 20, 2006