“When Steve Jobs stood on stage Tuesday at Macworld and showed off the iPhone for the gathered masses, he wasn’t just selling a phone. He was selling us the future — mobile, broadband-connected and ubiquitous,” Michael Calore writes for Wired News.
Calore writes, “It’s a well-worn vision, in fact, but one that suddenly seems tantalizingly close. His sleek little device runs an operating system born from Mac’s OS X. This gives the handheld the potential it needs to run real applications, not just widgets and ‘lite’ versions of desktop apps, as is the case with so-called smart phones powered by Microsoft’s Windows CE and PalmSource’s Palm OS.”
Calore writes, “The iPhone then is not just a phone, or a combo MP3-video player, but rather a portable computer. And, like a magician, Jobs has performed a sleight of hand in which the computer itself seems to disappear, just as the word has disappeared from Apple’s corporate name, leaving only its function behind. ‘I think this is a very big deal,’ says Silicon Valley technology forecaster Paul Saffo. ‘Cyberspace was a wonderful thing, but the only place you could enter cyberspace from was your desktop. We’ve had some brain damaged ways of accessing it from the places where we actually live our lives, but until now, they’ve all been compromised. If the iPhone works as advertised, it’s a no compromises node, and that’s a huge deal.'”
“‘This isn’t the next computer,’ Saffo continues. ‘This is the next home for the mind. Computers have had a nice long run, and laptops will always play at least some role. But the center of gravity is now slowly shifting from the desk to the device in your pocket.’ One thing seems certain. As software moves from the desktop to the web and as handheld devices get more powerful, it becomes more likely that we’ll see these little touch-screen communicators ruling our lives one day,” Calore writes.
Calore writes, “To be sure, the computer hasn’t literally disappeared with the advent of the iPhone, and it likely never will. It’ll just continue to get smaller and more powerful. How small and how powerful is now the subject of furious debate among software developers who really want to know: Is the iPhone in essence a slimmed down Mac?”
“The answer for now quite clearly is no. One of the salient features of a genuine computing platform is the ability to run third party applications, and currently the betting money says Apple won’t be opening its mobile platform to outsiders, at least for the foreseeable future,” Calore writes.
Full article here.
We disagree only with one of Calore’s statements: a “genuine computing platform” does not have to have “the ability to run third party applications.” Take your Mac and run only Apple applications and you certainly have a “genuine computing platform” with a world-class operating system, web browser, email, word processing, media editing, content management, presentation creation, and on and on and on. Just because Apple is the only company that’s realistically capable of providing a such a platform without any third party involvement today does not make it any less of a “genuine computing platform.”
Related articles:
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Apple’s Phil Schiller gives CBS News hands-on tour of iPhone – January 12, 2007
20 unanswered questions about Apple’s iPhone – January 11, 2007
Report: iPhone could be upgraded to 3G with software update if Apple wishes – January 11, 2007
Report: Rogers Communications to offer Apple iPhone in Canada – January 11, 2007
David Pogue: hands on preview of Apple’s iPhone, ‘gorgeous and so packed with possibilities’ – January 11, 2007
PC Magazine hands-on test of Apple iPhone: multi-touch UI ‘takes the breath away’ – January 11, 2007
Mossberg’s initial take on Apple iPhone: ‘radical and gorgeous’ with ‘brilliant new user interface’ – January 11, 2007
NewsWeek’s Levy interviews Apple CEO Steve Jobs about iPhone – January 11, 2007
Why Apple’s iPhone doesn’t do high-speed mobile phone networks (yet) – January 11, 2007
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ZDNet: Hands on with Apple’s iPhone: ‘elegant, ravishing, simple, sleek; impeccable & intuitive UI’ – January 11, 2007
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Analyst Bajarin: Apple’s iPhone and Apple TV are industry game changers – January 09, 2007
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USA Today writer: Apple iPhone is an ‘ordinary, average product’ at heart – January 12, 2007
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The Register’s Ray: Apple ‘iPhone’ will fail – December 26, 2006
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CNET editor Kanellos: ‘Apple iPhone will largely fail’ – December 07, 2006
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How very interesting it is to compare THIS article with the previous one. Leave it USA Today to slam Apple at every opportunity. One would think they’re British!
It’s great to see someone picking up on the potential of this. The Phone is the next computer platform.
I agree with the author, without opening to 3rd party applications it’s not truely a computing platform that is as versital as we expect a platform to be.
Not that it’s not a computer, nor that it won’t offer some wonderful utility, but not even Apple could have supplied all the versitility that we use on the Macintosh, nor will it alone be able to fullfill the full promise of the iPhone as a platform.
I think they know that and that they know they have the potential to be an incredible platform, superior to anything seen up till now on a mobile device, and that it being “closed” is just a temporary reality until it gets it’s legs and proves itself a bit on a short leash.
MDN’s take is retarded as always.
The ability to run third party apps is what creates major interest for a given platform. As soon as I heard that the iPhone runs OSX, I thought I could ditch my graphing calculator for a nice small app I could write and install on this thing. No chance, Jobs said don’t think of this as a portable computer and I think that means they won’t open it up to third party developers. Ever.
The ‘Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy’ is here. The should inscribe the words ‘Don’t Panic’ on the back of it.
iPhone is version 1.0 of the famous ‘Knowledge Navigator’ vision.
Just because it isn’t open to 3rd parties doesn’t stop it from being a computing platform – it’s just a computing platform that isn’t as flexible as some people want it to be. Shockingly most people couldn’t care less that they can’t do x, y and z on their phone – they just want it to do useful things easily and well. From what we’ve seen, it looks like the iPhone is a major step forward in terms of these sorts of devices and how they work for the average person, who after all is the vast majority of the market. The chief complaint about mobile phones is that they’ve been too complicated to use, the iPhone simplifies things but still gives you a great degree of power. I’m not saying it’s perfect but I think people are trying to pick holes in it because it isn’t this amazing, do everything wonder device, especially when existing devices are certainly no better overall. Of course, the iPhone will improve with time and subsequent iterations, this is hopefully the first step towards a new way of dealing with portable computing and interaction between devices.
For me, the greatest thing the iPhone has going for it is syncing – if it can get people fully taking advantage of all their data from their computers I think it benefits everybody because it opens up more possibilities for computers in general. How many “average” people, especially non-mac users, really use their computers for their contacts, calendaring etc? Not a huge percentage. It’s very exciting.
lol Gog!
The device really should be called iMac Nano, imho.
Funny, Wire usually is Mac basher. What gives?
Apple does not want to associate the word “Mac” to the device as this will be seen as a computing platform.
They want to sell this as a consumer electronic gadget — not as a computer. Even in Apple’s own commercials, they have “I am a PC, I am a Mac” — implying computers.
Compters immediately imply interoperability concerns.. windows vs. mac etc. They want to have the “iPhone” because people know that “iPod” works on both!
That’s why the phone is integrated through iTunes.
So, it will not be called “iMac nano”.
[Infact, they should have called their laptops as MacMobile — pun intended].
Less is more.
It’s interesting how Steve Jobs can incite a rage of computer paradigm ranting by not explaining OS X on the iPhone.
Or turning the cell phone industry on it’s head by aiming for 1% of the market and not saying who his target is.
Or demonstrating a multi-touch interface and not saying Leopard.
A true innovation (or Buddhist mind trick) – demonstrate a simple idea for 90 minutes, talk about it for 6 months.
=mc²
I think truly Jobs showed us the future. The future user interface: no keyboard, all touch screen laptops that might open like a book and have dynamic interface changing with the application. Think of a tablet on steroids. Physical keyboards will be a thing of the past: when you need it, it will graphically appear. Mouse? gone as well. Who needs mice and buttons when one can interact directly with objects on screen with your fingers?
Now we know who bought Fingerworks and the things up the sleeve will just be revolutionary. Jobs showed the iPhone, the day will be remembered as the beginning of the end for the traditional computer/user interaction.
Suddenly a 17″ MacBook can sport a 34″ screen
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@Randian
what’s with this ‘british slams apple’ attitude? the ‘phone made front page of the times here (that’s the newspaper that’s called “The Times”). i cannot remember any (future) consumer product getting that sort of status in this sort of paper.
MW : likely – as in the likely lads – ’70’s british humour at its best
The bottom line is that most people don’t actually want a computer. What they want is an appliance that handles e-mail, surfs the net, stores A/V content and handles their contacts and diary etc. They buy a computer because that’s currently the only way of doing those things.
The iPhone is an appliance that does all those things and more and does them elegantly. That’s why it will be a major success. Just as with the iPod, geeks will always count features and declare that X is better than Y because it has three extra functions. Meanwhile the public will clamour to buy iPhones because it allows them to do something they couldn’t do before in any sensible manner.
If the iPhone were being sold as an ultra-portable computer, then the ability to load third party software would be critical, but it’s being sold as a communication and entertainment device.
Don’t forget that this is the first of an unspecified number of variants. There is plenty of scope for other models to be designed target different markets.
Anybody holding out for an iPhone pro ?
Wired is all about the cutting edge, the future. It’s gonna take people who can see that the iPhone that was introduced was just the first shot in the new Revolution. The words were well spoken, the “Center” will move from our desktops, laptops, to our pockets or hand held devices. The last great problem to be solved is a simple and easy way to input info that effectively replaces the keyboard —- effective speech recognition.
It simply is not about what was announced and what will ship in June – it’s about what it will evolve into. In my attic sits one of the first 128k macs made. It started a revolution that put us where we are today. Think of the 2007 iPhone as that first 128k mac. Now think about where it will take us!
The revolution has begun. Pigs DO fly!
Ooh, ooh, an Book! The size of a medium size paperback. Open it up and you’re got two, 7″ multi-touch screens. Vertically you read it like a book, horizontally it’s a mini laptop/DVD/media player. Steve has said the iPhone is mostly a phone and not really a computer. The Book will be the computer.
“Apple does not want to associate the word “Mac” to the device as this will be seen as a computing platform.”
But it IS a computing platform. Its a MicroMac portable computing platform, although still with some limitations. No question about it.
http://www.macned.nl gives away new a brandnew iphone, go to this link
http://www.macned.nl/download/iphone.pdf
this might have already been asked, but does anyone know-or have heard-if the security on these things might include fingerprint scans? that would be cool. And if it stolen, whoever tries to open it has their prints sent wirelessly, along with their location.
never mind, I’m back awake now…
I agree with the article. When I saw the iPhone presentation I thought this is the future of personal computing and Steve just killed the PC.
The computer is history. The future is The Interface.
Apple will build a low-cost, easy to administer home server based around the mini design, with a home edition of OS X Server (or even the real thing, why not?) and that is where our data will live. It’ll connect to entertainment, communication, and productivity interfaces like tablets and monitors. And that’s just about it.
Home Productivity Environment.
Educated guess: Microsoft will fail spectacularly at this.
You’re deluding yourselves if you think it is anything more than an advanced phone. Most new phones have much of the same capabilities. What they don’t have is the underlying OS that enabled the devastatingly superior GUI of the Apple product. If and when Apple wants to deliver a PDA it may emerge stealthily from the iPhone or Phone, or it may require its own form factor. You’ll know about it then.
…It’s a well-worn vision, in fact, but one that suddenly seems tantalizingly close. His sleek little device runs an operating system born from Mac’s OS X. This gives the handheld the potential it needs to run real applications, not just widgets and “lite” versions of desktop apps, as is the case with so-called smart phones powered by Microsoft’s Windows CE and PalmSource’s Palm OS….
That’s where the RDF kicks in: “…it runs OS X.” Yeah, but you can’t photoshop an image, create a keynote presentation, run your enterprise apps…etc. You can’t skype, recode or modify a sound file and use it as your ringtone, or even run video iChat. It can’t. Not yet, at least. It’s a cell phone, albeit an advanced model with huge potential that will get realized in time.
Enterprise customers that need to run certain applications may be better served by competitors’ smart phones/pda’s. For the consumer masses, the Apple product is the dream device. MW: …in plain “English.”
As a Photoshop professional, I can honestly tell you that working in Photoshop on the iPhone would be like fitting wheels to a tomato. I wouldn’t even want to try it.
The iPhone is just one interface. There will be many more.
Less is More,
I could not disagree with your more vehemently. The “iPhone” is not just about a prototype device (which this is; it’s features will be finalized at the June launch, as will its name), it’s about the potential embodied by such a device, and in particular, the AMAZING NEW INTERFACE. In another post earlier, I linked to a demo by the Multi-Touch research group, and I explained why I firmly believed that the iPhone was merely an indication of what was possible, and coming, with OS X 10.5 Leopard. I firmly believe that Leopard’s new interface will be based on multi-touch technology. The iPhone is merely hinting at what is possible; if you can do all this with a cellphone-sized display, imagine what you can do with a full-blown desktop or tablet display.
What you have also not considered is the increasing capabilities of silicon and software. When, not if, when<i> more powerful CPU’s, faster, more capacious RAM, higher capacity hard drives become available, a device such as the iPhone may well become the primary computer for the majority of people. Just slot it into the dock, which connects to a full-sized keyboard and monitor, and you have all the functionality you might require in your pocket. Especially when your work resides on your corporate network (accesible via VPN) and your play resides on .Mac, or your private Mac server, also accesible via VPN, and you will be unchained from a device that needs to live in a preordained space in your home. It’s not about the device, it’s about <i>what you want to do. Microsoft fears Google for very good reason; they fear an Apple-Google collaboration even more.
Yeah it showed the future… it showed the Beatles in iTunes.
Did that register with anybody else?