“If you’ve ever wondered how it works, this is how it works: I don’t call Steve, Steve calls me. Or more accurately, someone in Steve Jobs’s office calls someone in my office—someone at a much higher pay grade —to say that he has something cool. I then fly to the metastasized strip mall called Cupertino, Calif., where Apple lives, sign some legal confidentiality stuff and am escorted to a conference room that contains Jobs, some associates, and some lumps concealed under some black towels. I stare at what was under the towels. Everybody else stares at me,” Lev Grossman reports for Time Magazine.
Grossman reports, “This is how Apple, and nobody else, introduces new products to the press. It can be awkward, because Jobs is high-strung and he expects you to be impressed. I was, fortunately, and with good reason. Apple’s new iPhone could do to the cell phone market what the iPod did to the portable music player market: crush it pitilessly beneath the weight of its own superiority. This is unfortunate for anybody else who makes cell phones, but it’s good news for those of us who use them.”
“The iPhone developed the way a lot of cool things do: with a false start. A few years ago Jobs noticed how many development dollars were being spent—particularly in the greater Seattle metropolitan area—on what are called tablet PCs: flat, portable computers that work with a touchscreen instead of a mouse and keyboard. Jobs, being Jobs, figured he could do better, so he had Apple engineers noodle around with a tablet PC. When they showed him the touchscreen they came up with, he got excited. So excited he forgot all about tablet computers,” Grossman reports.
Grossman reports, “The iPhone breaks two basic axioms of consumer technology. One, when you take an application and put it on a phone, that application must be reduced to a crippled and annoying version of itself. Two, when you take two devices—such as an iPod and a phone—and squish them into one, both devices must necessarily become lamer versions of themselves. The iPhone is a phone, an iPod, and a mini-Internet computer all at once, and contrary to Newton—who knew a thing or two about apples—they all occupy the same space at the same time, but without taking a hit in performance. In a way iPhone is the wrong name for it. It’s a handheld computing platform that just happens to contain a phone.”
Grossman reports, “All technologists believe their products are better than other people’s, or at least they say they do, but Jobs believes it a little more than most. In the hours we spent talking about the iPhone, Jobs trash-talked the Treo, the BlackJack, the Sony PSP and the Sony Mylo (“just garbage compared to this”), Windows Vista (“It’s just a copy of an old version of Mac OSX”) and of course Microsoft’s would-be iPod killer, Zune.”
Oh, there’s more. The full article, highly recommended, is here.
iPhone is the wrong name for it. Grossman’s correct: “It’s a handheld computing platform that just happens to contain a phone.” And that handheld computing platform is Mac OS X.
Related articles:
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
The iPhone is here to Pump….you up!!!
First
Someone smells like they just ate a Zune sandwich. Oh wait, that’s just Billy Gates brown pantlegs after seeing the iPhone during Steve’s keynote today.
S l u r p
Anyone care to guess how many chairs were destroyed in Redmond today?
The iPhone won’t crush any market until it becomes less expensive. That will happen it’s just a question of how long until it happens. I want one but will probably wait for the next model.
Did anyone else find this keynote long winded? It was soooo long winded that it actually became quite boring. At least half of the iPhone talk could have been easily cut out and replaced with some Mac news. That would have made it one of the greatest keynotes ever. As it stands last years keynote blew this one away from an excitement standpoint.
Reasonable article.
Nice intro…nice product…a nuclear bomb? Maybe a slow one…we’ll see when and where the fallout drops next year.
MW: “Cut” as in “Cut, print…now let’s move to the Macs’ set….”
It sucks that you can’t buy just the iPhone. You HAVE to sign up for Cingular service. Bah!
The boring part was when people who weren’t Steve Jobs were talking. during his entire talk–I was going that is so freaking cool.
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Of course, I had decided I had to have one as soon as I read the update that it has OS X. Didn’t know what it cost, but I wanted it.
Still do, and the good thing is my phone contract runs out in June/July – perfect timing.
Now, how to we go abotu getting new programs for the IPhone – (maybe VOIP, so when I am home I can use my wireless network instead of a analog line?).
I am going to do my darnest to turn mine (when I finally get it) into a PDA/music/video/internet phone (oh yeah that’salready done), an ereader, and most importantly something to showcase my Delicious Library database on. I want to turn this into my own mini-computer. (I wonder if links to all blue-tooth stuff hmm.
BTW-does anyone know if it plays the Ipod games? I might as well turn it into a hand held video game too.
I will say it again — so freaking cool!!!!
Heard from all around Redmond, Washington today… Steve Ballmer was quoted as screaming, “I WANT APPLE *&^%#$% DEAD!”
ROTFLMAO!
Can you imagine 2009?
What will MSFT and DELL and PALM and RIMM be in 2009?
What will AAPL be?
I bought the very first iPod back in November 2001 at $399. I read lots and lots of reports about how that was too expensive and it would be a huge flop.
Yup.
The new iPhone is going to be bigger than the iPod. I have absolutely no doubt that 12 to 18 months after the first iPhones are sold, Apple will have a new model that is half the price, twice the capacity and triple the battery life. Fact is, it costs money to be an early adopter. I just hate that I have to wait until June to get one!
And it’s going to be a gas to see what sort of bad copy iPhone Microsoft comes up with.
I saw chairs flying across the highway all the way down in Renton. =)
I just have to look at this again….
“crush it pitilessly beneath the weight of its own superiority”
One more time…
“crush it pitilessly beneath the weight of its own superiority”
“crush it pitilessly beneath the weight of its own superiority”
“crush it pitilessly beneath the weight of its own superiority”
“crush it pitilessly beneath the weight of its own superiority”
“crush it pitilessly beneath the weight of its own superiority”
Music. Sweet, sweet music. ^_^
-c
MW: ‘business’ (as unusual)
no, really, where is zune tang NOW?
waiting for the inevetable dumbassed comment from Zune Tang.
face it Zune Tang, your irony has grown stale.
As cool as it already is, I can’t wait to see the hacks people will come up with for these.
And… those three guys don’t even look happy to be holding those pieces of junk. What a bunch of schleps.
After watching the keynote, the thing I took away was Steve mentioning how they patented the heck out of the UI,specifically the touch screen. This is what really makes the iPhone different than anything else that’s out there.
This makes me sorta mad. Apple waltzes in here with no experience from making mobile phones and creates a revolutionary kick-ass phone!
SonyEricsson, Nokia and Motorola have been serving us crap for years compared to this.
Thank heaven Apple comes along.
I would love to be at the meetings at the above mentioned companies tomorrow LOL
Not buying one though as you should never buy first gens.
Nice work Apple, crush the fscking lame phone makers!
But, but , Zune has wireless too! They copied Zune! M$ was first, oh how M$ innovates and sets trends!!
Agree with that buffalo, I really want to use one now. Pity they won’t be available in Europe until 4th quater.
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I was all ready for a very basic letdown that could iSync my contacts, but this blew me away! With this news I am letting my current cell contract die. I will save at least $50/month until the iPhone rolls out in June (or earlier as Apple has a tendency to do). My savings will mostly pay for the new Apple phone. There’s going to be a lot of angry words in competitors boardrooms tomorrow!
Oh yeah, and did you know the Zune can “Squirt”! Hahahahahahahahahhahahhahahahahahahahahahhaahahahah. ROFLMAO.
I just pray that they dump the iPhone name. Why bother coming to terms with Cisco over it when it doen’t even do the device justice. Apple should continue with the direction they took with the (Apple)TV. Dump the “i” and go for the brand recognition. Everytime someone says phone, they say Apple first. I love it and the logo just looks really cool.
MW enough, as in I can’t get…
Uh … fingerprints on the screen … ?
MDN Take nails it down tight. Greg M, it costs the same as a mini, does more, and comes with a display. Hell of a deal, it would have been a hot item at $800. This is a game changer, and whatever happened in Los Vegas today … did anything happen in Los Vegas today? Apple has sucked all the oxygen from that little event.
One question… how the ^$&# did that guy become the CEO of Cingular. No wonder Cingular has issues. Guess every company can’t have a Steve.
I think $499 and $599 are good deals for what you get. You can’t compare the iPhone to other phones as it’s really Newton 2.0 with OS X. Apple shouldn’t have called it iPhone.
What does Redmond have? The Zune and Windows Mobile Crossbow? HAHAHA!!!