“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
I agree that iPhone is the wrong name. Someone needs to tell Steve to drop the negotiations with Cisco. Just call the thing “iMobile” because that’s what it does. This device makes not only your phone mobile, it makes your music mobile, your photos mobile, your contacts mobile, your messaging mobile, your internet mobile, etc. To me, “iMobile” just works!
Personally, i think Apple shouldda let the iPhone name go after Cisco has released its phone, not only will it avoid the whole confusion for consumers but also all those money paid to Cisco… Of course Apple and only Apple coulda come up with a cooler, more unique & discriptive name for this greater than great product, Apple phone, XPhone (OS X)… or something. Too many companies already copy the “i” thing for their own uses making the name too common now, Apple shouldda gone to a dirrent direction. The only phone every should get starting June 2007 nevertheless, I’ll dump Motorola & Verizon in a second. Go Apple Go!!!!
I’m returning my Treo 700 tomorrow, waiting six months with my old Treo 600, to get one of the first iPhones. This thing is so cool, and does so many things I’ve wanted my Treo to do, that I can’t believe it.
This will be a BIGGER product than iPod in 24 months!!
I haven’t noticed anybody mention the significance of Steve jobs turning on the iPod portion of the iphone to…The Beatles. Is this foreboding of what’s to come…soon?? On iTMS
Apple wants the iPhone name because they want to emphasize that it is a revolution in phones for the mainstream consumer. Not mobile device, not Internet device, but phone.
Now we “geeky” Apple followers all know that this is much more than a phone, but just like with the iPod, Apple is aiming way beyond us with the iPhone.
Jobs knows it’s a handheld computer… this is about marketing. The iPod had a “halo effect”, but this “is” the halo. He’s telling you your buying a phone… but that’s the trojan horse. Now your an Apple Computer user… even if yer called Apple Inc. now. Welcome aboard one and all.
Surprised that MDN’s take was so mild.
‘We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,’ he (Palm CEO Cooligan) said. ‘PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.'”
From MDN’s previous take, the rude awakening for Cooligan just happened. There were quite a few people trying to figure out how to get around all those Apple patents today.
is right. I almost feel sorry for Microsoft. Almost. There is no way they can compete–this makes the Zune look pretty sad indeed . . . and once Leopard rolls out, holy crap! The apps I’ve been using with what I assume are Leopard touches (Photoshop CS 3 beta, Toast 8) . . . good grief. Apple are so far ahead of the rest it’s spooky . . . this is what they used to call a paradigm shift, and once again Apple leads the way.
Halo effect indeed. Those phone widgets look just like the Mac widgets. And Safari, that’s on the Mac only. And those SMS bubbles, that looks familiar too!
The iPhone UI is much more closely related to the Mac than the iPod’s is.
Everyone should just read Engadget’s coverage on the Michael Dell 1-hour keynote at CES.
It’s so boring you can’t help but feel sorry for the guy.
@Dr. Macenstein: exactly!
There are probably “top secret” things in Leopard that will work magic with the iPhone. The consumer can either hook up their iPhone to their boring beige box or buy a new Mac and have the new features of Leopard.
Enormously absent from the keynote was .Mac. .Mac will be perfectly suited to work with the iPhone: get to all your documents, send them as attachments, modify them with scaled-down iWork apps, all without having to “download” them to the iPhone.
The only limit to what the iPhone can do is what Apple restrict us from doing. What we saw today is the tip of the iceberg.
Gates are closing
Jobs are scarce
Here’s a wake up call
Answer it (as the music softens)
Looks like the Beatles are on their way to iTunes-too many hints
Jobs alluded to a 3G phone coming soon
I am looking forward to an announcement each month until June of new/improved products from Apple, Inc.
i have to start saving money from today…
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Haha, Zune Tang, is that the best you could come up with?
I’ll be waiting for the iPods that I predict will adopt some of iPhone’s capabilities in the next couple of months. Also, I forsee Leopard using alot of the same UI look and functionality of the iPhone. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if that OS running the iPhone is mini Leopard. Too bad we heard nothing of this in Tuesday’s keynote.
I inferred from the keynote that it is running Leopard mini. The iPhone uses Core Animation, which is a new feature of Leopard.
They should’ve named it the “iGo”.
As mentioned in another post.
I would have gone for iMobile (though that name has probably already been by another company too).
It sums up the device perfectly. It is your mobile phone, mobile music, mobile movies/TV, mobile e-mail, and as mentioned with OSX your mobile computer too
My 2 cents,
Luke
Someone from Apple please copy what “ace” wrote above and show it to Steve J, (that other Steve)
ace hit the nail on the head, he couldn’t be more right!
BTW – Does anyone believe Apple is going to wait till June to release this thing? They are just giving themselves a buffer. Just in case.
Palm CEO Cooligan said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.'”
Look who ‘just walked in’.
And ‘they’ are fixin’ to beat him up and steal his lunch money.
LOL
MW ‘deep’, as in Palm and the rest of the industry are in deep do-do
LOL again
GregM wrote “The iPhone won’t crush any market until it becomes less expensive”
Yeah, everyone said the very same expensive thing about the ipod also. We all know how that turned out. Talked with a friend after the keynote, he spent more than $600 on the new 8gig nano and a smart phone. I’m not a big all-in one device person, this phone has changed my mind.
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned this is Mac OSX taking all the info off Windows machines. Many will buy it just for the phone/iPod/Palm features/interface and will unwittingly be switching platforms. Many may realize they no longer want or need their PC or desire a Mac as a replacement. The best predictor of future behaviour is by looking at the past, and just like the iPod, Apple may release more software enticements to the Windows crowd, perhaps Safari and iCal to assist the iPhone users. It is very likely that MS will try to block compatibility with their software by breaking the protocols with every “security update”. Leopard itself will leverage some features not demonstrated today such as WiFi content delivery, syncing and the reason behind Apple’s recent patent application for the phrase “Mobile Me.”
“It’s so boring you can’t help but feel sorry for the guy.”
I don’t. Say it with me now!!!
“I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”
-c
MW: ‘forces’ (quite beyond your comprehension)
I think they should have called it the iWant.
Why don’t they name it the “iCom”
iComputer/iCommunicator
Apple, Inc.’s new device runs MacOS X. Call it “Mac mobile”, then. Even if the name remains “iPhone”, this revolutionary product will sell like hotcakes.