Earlier we carried a summary of an Associated Press article that reported Time Magazine would name Apple’s iPhone “Invention of the Year.” Now, Time’s article has come online:
Lev Grossman reports for Time, “Yes, there’s been a lot of hype written about the iPhone, and a lot of guff too. So much so that it seems weird to add more, after Danny Fanboy and Bobby McBlogger have had their day. But when that day is over, Apple’s iPhone is still the best thing invented this year. Why? Five reasons:”
1. The iPhone is pretty: [It’s] part of what makes the iPhone usable in a world of useless gadgets. It speaks your language. In the world of technology, surface really is depth.
2. It’s touchy-feely: Apple’s engineers used the touchscreen to innovate past the graphical user interface (which Apple helped pioneer with the Macintosh in the 1980s) to create a whole new kind of interface, a tactile one that gives users the illusion of actually physically manipulating data with their hands—flipping through album covers, clicking links, stretching and shrinking photographs with their fingers.
This is, as engineers say, nontrivial.
3. It will make other phones better: [Apple CEO Steve Jobs] negotiate the deal with AT&T to carry the iPhone [that] gave Apple unprecedented freedom to build the iPhone to its own specifications. Now other phone makers are jealous. They’re demanding the same freedoms. That means better, more innovative phones for all.
4. It’s not a phone, it’s a platform: [Apple’s OS X-based] iPhone [is] more than just a gadget. It’s a genuine handheld, walk-around computer, the first device that really deserves the name.
5. It is but the ghost of iPhones yet to come: The iPhone has sold enough units—more than 1.4 million at press time—that it’ll be around for a while, and with all that room to develop and its infinitely updatable, all-software interface, the iPhone is built to evolve.
Full article here.
me want 16 gig iphone for christmas please
let the haters chew on that for a while.
best phone ever!!!
iPhone ROCKS the mainframe.
“whittled from a piece of flint using another piece of flint”
best quote, describing relative look of iPod v.1 now/then
Invention? Hardly. But Apple has reinvented the category of the cell phone. BTW thanks to Apple for replacing my broken iPhone with a brand spanking new one. They could have just given me a loaner and fixed it.
Necessity sure is a mother.
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”
– Steve Ballmer
O Simian Behemoth, please enlighten us more with your salty wisdom.
The poet who penned these purple prose,
must own an iPhone
too.
We all know what Ballmer said, but what Palm’s CEO? “They’re not going to just walk in.”
You’re right, Mister Ed (Colligan, if I’m not mistaken). Apple showed up at your place in broad daylight, kicked the door in, backed up a truck and emptied the joint, then bodily picked you up, turned you upside down and shook you until all the loose change hit the floor, then took that, too.
Oh, and then they made you smooch both cheeks before they exited, stage left. It’s called INNOVATION, bee-yotch! Adapt or die.
As far as “Invention of the Year”, I knew that during Steve’s MWSF Keynote on January 9th, didn’t you? How much more anticlimactic can you get?
Peace.
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Olmecmystic
Good point, Olmecmystic.
Here’s more on that Colligan injection from web archives:
Responding to questions from New York Times correspondent John Markoff at a Churchill Club breakfast gathering Thursday morning, Colligan laughed off the idea that any company — including the wildly popular Apple Computer — could easily win customers in the finicky smart-phone sector.
“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”
It must be getting hairy for Palm these days.
“It must be getting hairy for Palm these days.”
Pun intended, Kestrel?
The “PC” guys have not only figured it out, they’re also busy rewriting the rulebook.
Heh, heh!
“@Mauritius Kestrel
Necessity sure is a mother.
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”- Steve Ballmer
“
Wooooo Hoooo, Apple now has .14% of the cell phone market. This is HUGH!!!!! I bet Ballmer is throwing chairs. By the end of the year, we will have .20% of the market. Moto is TOAST!!!! Ballmer sure got it wrong!!!
Goooooo Steve!!!!
Don’t you have spell check on that winbox?
It’s “Hugh”? – Like in Hugh Jackman?
… and it the “smart phone sector” Apple is after little one, not the whole cell phone market.
Take some time, learn some facts, and come back when you’ve got game.
“Don’t you have spell check on that winbox?
It’s “Hugh”? – Like in Hugh Jackman?”
Wooooo Hoooooo, you use proper grammar on message boards. You must be a real Mac expert!!!!!
FWIW, this is NOT a WinBox, it is a Dual Core Mini and I just finished my 10.5 install (which I got for ONLY $89 at Microcenter in Columbus!!!!!!!!!!). Very nice and it installed in 58 minutes.
Oh BTW, Hugh and Huge are both correctly spelled words, so all the spell checkers in the world won’t find my error..
In other words, a Revolution, one way or another.
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Shoeman, I’m in Columbus. The Microcenter in Westerville is long gone; you must be talking about the one on Bethel Rd?
Peace.
Olmecmystic
@ Olmecmystic
Yes, that is correct. I stopped in Wednesday and they had a $40 rebate on Leopard. (Either the single or 5 user version). I am in PA but work in Columbus (and am there a few days a week) so it is just a quick hop up 315 to Microcenter. A really nice Apple “sub-store” and I visit there once every few weeks…
@ Shoeman,
Apple doesn’t want the “cell phone” market. Apple doesn’t make a cell-phone.
Apple invented a new market, the iPhone market, and it has 100% of it. Just like it has 100% of the iPod market and 100% of the Mac market.
It is clear that Apple is not all that interested in the “PC” market. Apple doesn’t make “PCs” it makes Macs. Apple doesn’t make MP3 players, it makes iPods.