“A decade after Apple was pushed out of computing’s mainstream, it’s taking center stage in a host of other industries—with the iPhone,” Adrian J. Slywotzky reports for BusinessWeek.
Slywotzky continues, “In the ultra-competitive space where computers, entertainment, and consumer electronics meet, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs must have hoped and prayed for at least a brief window of solitary dominance before powerful competitors attacked its lucrative iPod stronghold. Yet as of today, 69 months later and counting, not one has come up with an effective strategic response to the iPod. Except, of course, Apple. Now Apple has announced its next big strategic move: the iPhone. Will the competitive response to the iPhone be just as slow?”
Slywotzk reports, “iPhone is not just a phone. It’s also the world’s first really powerful sub-laptop computer, equipped with an optimized version of the user-friendly Mac OS X operating system. More important, it’s an 80/20 computer… iPhone will provide 80% of what you really use your computer for: e-mail, Web browsing, simple word processing, and access to music, pictures, and video when and where you want them… The iPhone will be Steve Jobs’s Revenge.”
Full article here.
Oh YES!
MDN Word of the Day: have….as in, it’s time for Apple Fans to have lots and lots of fun! Muhahahahah
That’s Right!
The cult of mac has truly reached global proportions. It will be fun to see all the people lined up at the NYC Apple stores later today.
I love it when we speak on behalf of other people that we know wouldn’t even give us the time of day otherwise. Yeah, Steve. I’m working on this article called “Steve Jobs – Revenge!”. Do you mind talking for a while?
All made possible by OSX, the greatest OS the world has ever known.
You have to think that while others are busy playing catch up to the iPhone – just as they have tried catch up with the iPod – Apple is already working on the next ideas.
So it isn’t about keeping up it’s about thinking way ahead. The competition just doesn’t get it. It used to be easy to be lazy, copy and not innovate (as with Microsoft and GM). But now the evolution of it is, if you don’t truly innovate – you’re a fossil.
He’s right, because my 80 year old mom only needs to make calls, send and read email, and surf the web a little. I gave her a 12″ AluPB, but a subnote iPhone would be better and more convenient. She’s seen the ads, and wants one. How cool is that?
With all the obvious thought and attention to detail that is in the iPhone, it begs an inescapable conclusion that Jobs and AT&T have a rich and diversified product & service plan mapped out for the next 5 years.
Can a Mac version of the tablet be far off – I think not!
But what to call it – that’s the question maybe something alone the lines of the iTablet or maybe even the iSlab!
That most likely what hold it up – the naming process.
That one has going to be a butch to name!
“Revenge is a dish best served cold” – Khan Noonian Sing (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan)
Apple iPhone: Steve Jobs’ Revenge
Microsoft Zune: Montezuma’s Revenge
MW:brown
I think a tablet mac would be called MacTablet more than iTablet, as Apple said they want the workd mac in all there PC products.
I don’t like the word MacTablet.
I think the iPhone is the only MacTablet we’ll ever see.
This guy seems to get it. Calling the iPhone a “phone” is silly. Sure it can make calls but that is one of it’s lesser functions.
Slywotzky hits the nail on the head when he calls it “… the world’s first really powerful sub-laptop computer.”
And the reason the iPhone is at all possible is one and only one:
OSX. It’s what makes it all possible.
Agree with the opinion that there won’t be a tablet. It wouldn’t make sense, and would dilute the existing products.
I think they’re also counting on a possible iPhone halo effect. People will stand in line and raise the iPhone to cult status. The same people will get to know and hopefully respect osx, and buy a mac when their windows box breaks or becomes obsolete. The people who buy them will also be showing them to dozens of people around them and build word of mouth buzz on top of the media interest.
IF Apple pulls this off, this could be even more important to the company that the iPod could ever hope to be…
I also think that one of the first ways that apple should update the device is to put pda features on it, and make it work with iCal.
Yeah, I know the PDA market’s dead, but there’s no reason not to have the true convergence device, the geek’s holy grail…
Will the competitive response to the iPhone be just as slow?
It only requires a few brain cells to understand that their won’t be any competition. It’s OS X!!! Who else has anything close to OS X? Microsoft? HA! Vista is so bloated there’s NO WAY it will work in a handset. Check and mate.
@ Thunk Different
That’s Right!
The cult of mac has truly reached global proportions. It will be fun to see all the people lined up at the NYC Apple stores later today.
Related to the 4-letter word starting with c and ending with ult: Financial Times hack fearfully employs hackneyed ‘cult’ smear tactic against Apple iPhone, Mac users
@ TowerTone
Microsoft Zune: Montezuma’s Revenge
I thought the Aztecs were all killed off by the Spanish.
A little TOO cold for revenge, don’t you think?
MW: efforts – lots of them, in fact, from Apple
The first rule of iPhone is that you do not fsck with the iPhone.
The second rule of iPhone is that you do not fsck with the iPhone.
Just wait for iCal integration. The iPhone is a morphing technology, so we will just have to wait for the software updates. I bet it will be in the next 6 – 9 months. The Windows integration needs to probably be rectified prior to this change.
Your homework assignment for the week: Get into a fight with the telcom industry.
And crush them.
What do you mean ‘wait’ until ical integration? Is that not already part of the iphone?
-Leif
http://www.iphoneplease.com
http://www.sparknw.com
Because a Mac tablet would be about halfway between the iPhone and the MacBook, I don’t know how Apple would brand it, but I don’t think it could be that hard: iPad or MacPad. Sounds good, right?
“iPad or MacPad. Sounds good, right?”
Sounds like something made by Cotex.
How about MacsiPad? ;P
Steve Jobs tomorrow: Unzip… THUD!
tamPad?
@ dominic
lolz.
Dion,
I agree. And I would add that the BeOS had the greatest unrealized potential for an OS.
Revenge is a dish best served cold” – Khan Noonian Sing (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan)
Star Trek 2 gave us one of the best lines in a movie ever. Uttered by Captain “Priceline” Kirk, “Khhhaaaaaaaaaaaaannnn!”
I just realized that a tablet-like Mac with multi-touch, is not only a step away, but will have Mac OSX with the full iChat, camera, etc. If that baby has the cellphone chip, too, it’ll be killer.
@ Bartsimpsonhead
u really think that saying comes from Star Trek ?
it’s from dangerous liaisons, “la revanche est un plat qui ce mange froid”, a book written in the 18’th century
“u really think that saying comes from Star Trek ?
it’s from dangerous liaisons, “la revanche est un plat qui ce mange froid”, a book written in the 18’th century”
Man, we are talking Star Trek, you know… faster than light warp speed & time travel. Remember when Kirk, Spock & Sulu went back in time & visited the 60s? Several times!
I bet you feel silly not realizing where that quote really comes from… Bones was thrown back to the 18th cent by the entabacron.
Trek time travel is even the source for iPhone desire. Tricorders have been around since the mid 20th cent and its time we actually got one.
Funny though how even Trek had separate devices for talking & data crunching.
“Funny though how even Trek had separate devices for talking & data crunching.”
They also used 3.5″ floppies. Philistines.
-c
OS X is a critical key to Apple’s success. And the competition will not be able to match it for 5 to 10 years, but then only if they understand the real issues of OS X’s superiority.
Moore’s law finally allowed the use of a full blown OS, as opposed to the limited capability embedded OSs of the past, to be used in electronic “gadgets”. Now Apple can leverage all of the OS X richness developed for and paid for by its Macintosh business. Windows Mobile is, BTW, one of those limited embedded systems that does not inherit the software stacks from the Windows products on PCs. Only the name and superficial look are the same or similar. And the Moore’s law dynamic keeps on going on. Apple will keep on upgrading — software most often, then hardware with new capabilities and updated software with somewhat less frequency. The competition does not have a prayer of keeping up without a competitive OS.
Then there is Apple’s devotion to the user interface that comes from its culture. Its competitors have utterly different – might I say “bozo” — corporate cultures, that have not a chance of “getting it”, without firing the leadership and the bulk of the managers. Cultures rarely change for the better. They are overthrown.
Only Apple can defeat Apple.
“La vinditta e un piattu chi si mangia friddu.”
It’s an ancient mafia proverb, too.
— Fredo
from a struggling, do-it-yourself kid to one hell of a bite-em-in-the-ass junkyard dog … paybacks a bitch, ain’t it
Looked more like solid-state (flash) memory sticks. They called them “tapes” because the audience wouldn’t understand flash memory. They’d plug them in and unplug them at will. They did, however, look like painted blocks of wood, compared with our thinner cards of today.
@ Martin
Yes, I really think that comes from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – I watched it the other day. It was in there. On my TV screen.
I didn’t claim it was the original source of the quote though – your just trying to show how much of a smart ass you are!