“First there was iPod, now there’s iPhone. The next phase of Apple’s plan to reinvent itself as a consumer electronics company was unveiled Tuesday by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, and it received a warm reception from Wall Street,’ The Associated Press reports.
“The touch-screen-controlled device plays music, surfs the Internet and delivers voice mail and e-mail differently than any other cell phone,” AP reports.
AP reports, “iPhone, introduced by Jobs during his keynote speech at the annual Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco, was accompanied by Apple TV, a set-top box that streams video from computers to television. the company is even getting a name change — from Apple Computer Inc. to just Apple Inc. — to better reflect its transition to a full-scale consumer electronics manufacturer and retailer.”
AP reports, “Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president for worldwide marketing, said Apple isn’t getting out of the computer business, despite the name change. It’s simply broadening its business. ‘We sell Macintoshes and will continue to do so and are very happy with that business,’ he said.”
Full article here.
Of course Apple Inc. isn’t getting out of the computer business. Mac market share and unit sales are growing and profitable – and, in fact, the iPhone itself is a Mac.
Related articles:
Hands-on with Apple’s iPhone – January 10, 2007
The only thing really wrong with Apple’s iPhone is its name – January 09, 2007
Is Apple building ‘The Device?’ [revisited] – January 09, 2007
Analyst Bajarin: Apple’s iPhone and Apple TV are industry game changers – 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
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
Apple will rule the home comsumer electronics industry soon. There is no doubt that Apple has big plans and TIVO and Replay and others better watch out. I would love to see a true intergrated apple DVR with my satellite system like directv had the tivo.
{sighs}
MacDailyNews needs to change its name to AppleDailyNews.
MDN – the Mac is on the backburner at Apple.
New Priorities at Apple:
1. iPhone
2. iPod
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down lower. Computers
You might actually have a point there if the iPhone itself wasn’t a computer, but it is. Repeat after me, the iPhone IS a Mac. Whether some of you want to acknowledge that fact or not, it’s still true.
Why don’t people understand…the iPhone IS a computer…just a small one in your pocket. Handheld device, laptops, and desktops, all computers, all running OSX, each with their place, and now all working together seamlessly.
at least ‘Reality Check’ and I are on the same page.
The iPhone IS a Mac. Run OS X, not Virus CE.
@Hubris All Around:
Must suck to be you today – kinda hurts don’t it?
Well, if you can’t say Apple is going bankrupt and you can’t say Steve is a crook; you’re left to hope Apple is going out of the computer business.
Gotta hurt to be a Windoze fan boy today.
Hubris all around: Are you alright in the head man, Jobs did say at the start that he had some really cool stuff coming up for the mac. These comments are so moronic I can’t even believe it.
I saw the smile Steve Jobs had on his face for the keynote. It’s the same smile he had on his face when he introduced the original Macintosh back in ’84. He knows he’s got a winner and is very proud of his team. At the same time, deep down inside he’s laughing at Microsoft. He knows they could never do what Apple does when it comes to innovating.
Apple, Inc. The true tech giant.
Get out of the computer business? Anyone saying this apparently has no clue and thinks the Mac is still in the sad state it was in the mid-90s.
Mac sales are increasing each quarter. Concentrating on market share is ridiulous, only because for Apple, it doesn’t exactly matter. Apple makes a nice profit on each computer. Dell makes very little, even if they do have the market share.
OS X works so damn well because Apple makes the whole widget. Why is that so hard to understand? Apple doesn’t make that much on an OS X license. Opening it up to PCs will just open up the compat. issues Microsuck deals with all the time.
Apple is in a neat transition right now. The Mac you so malign will be all around you before you know it, starting with a phone and then who knows what.
iPhone may be a computer, but then all that means is that it will eventually kill off the need for notebooks and other computers.
Why lug around a notebook or take up space in your home with a desktop when you have a iPhone and at home plug it into your 46-inch LCD high-def TV? The Mac (and other computers) have begun to enter the dinosaur mode and about two years from now (when the next gen, more powerful and more storage space iPhone comes out) someone will start noticing a shift in computer buying habits….
(Notice how iPhone has a similar price point as the Mac mini? High end iPhone = low end Mac mini price.)
If you want to see how this stuff might integrate into the desktop (and where Apple got the technology):
This basically demonstrates the photo app, pinching and all.
I was in an Apple store months ago and 2 grandpas were excited over ipods. GRANDPAS! I was in a Best Buy on boxing day and although the Apple Macs were at the very back of the store AND surrounded by boxes of other product so it wasn’t easy to get to the Macs, there were women and couples standing around trying out the computers. I couldn’t believe it. Although i’m a Machead, i’m more happy that people are discovering another way to compute that’s far less painful than using Windows.
Human input into computing devices has gone from cards to keyboards to light pens to mice to fingers to joysticks to knobs to sliders – and so on — all before 1984! Why do people think that any single computing device should use only one method for human interaction? The beauty of combining methods, such as the mouse + keyboard you are currently using to read this thread, or the keyboard + Wacom tablet + pen that graphic designers might use for Photoshop, or the physical buttons + MultiTouch of iPhone, demonstrate the power of using varied input methods to accomplish assorted tasks on a single device.
With that in mind, think of a display that looks like your current 20-30″ LCD but has Multi-Touch capability. It sits on your desk, not at the exclusion of your mouse and keyboard, but in addition to it.
Apple gets it because they realize it is about integration and interaction, not just computers or cell phones or mp3 players. Or even a set top box. It’s about services and devices that compliment each other. This is why Sony put a blu-ray drive in their PS3. This is why Microsoft got into the game console business and finally made an MP3 player of their own.
But they are also-rans at this point behind the innovation leader, Apple.
So I have no fears about the Mac being abandoned. As long as there is an information services demand for a computer, there will be a Mac.
Thanks to bond co. stooge for his insightful post.
drmacnut
I was thinking about getting a 13-inch notebook instead of lugging around either my 15 or 17 inch notebooks. But now I am going wait a bit and rethink. The iPhone is basically a mini-notebook. So I will check it out some more and hold off on my buying a notebook plans. The iPhone looks like it could be the on-the-go notebook I really need.
The guys at Sony are saying “Damn iPhone,that´s where we were going with the PSP!”
I think the most interesting thing about yesterday’s announcements — iPhone, Apple TV, name change — and what a lot of people are missing, is that even though Apple changed its name to Apple, Inc., leaving out the “Computer”, in no way does that indicate a shift *away* from computers. If anything, it’s the opposite.
This is key: iPhone establishes OS X as a viable OS platform for consumer electronic devices. The name change gives Apple credibility to expand into new markets and not be viewed as *just* a computer maker.
I *love* that iPhone runs OS X! That’s like telling Microsoft, “You know your crippled little Windows CE (Consumer Electronics) operating system? Well… checkmate.”
In the future, I expect to see more devices from Apple built on the OS X platform. I don’t expect Apple to license the full OS X to other companies. OS X is the crown jewels. But do you think they might license a stripped-down consumer electronics version for embedded-device manufacturers? Not sure about that, but probably not.. I think they’ll want to consolidate their position first.
MW led: Apple led the way
ChrissyOne,
You could be very correct. I really hope you’re not though, I just don’t want to imagine a world where I’m stuck buying Dells and HPs, and, … ooo ick! I’m gaging just thinking about it. If you’re correct where will we get quality hardware from?
One reason you may not be correct is that, Apple would have to make itself reliant on “others” to make OS X compatible hardware to run their software on. Now, given Apples history, how often does Apple not do their own thing from soup to nuts. When they make a cell phone they make the whole think, same goes for the iPod, TV, and of course, computers.
I don’t think so, ChrissyOne. I think Apple will always sell hardware. I think Steve Jobs recognizes that the computer is changing and developing less and less of a footprint, although I doubt this will ever be “zero” (ie. no hardware).
And, ZachCube, you hit it right on the head. OS 11 will feature voice-control and touch screen technology throughout the OS – like that Tom Cruise movie from a few years ago where they could predict crimes before they happened (whatever it was called). Watch the computers in that movie.
“Minority Report”
Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick.
And yes, that was pretty cool. I think the Scientologists had something similar on their home planet.