“Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of attending all of Apple’s major milestone events, including the launch of the first-ever Mac back in 1984, as well as the initial iPod launch. More recently, I was there when Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone. At the event, Jobs referenced the two previous major platform announcements and declared that the iPhone would be the third,” Tim Bajarin writes for PC Magazine.
“Thanks to the recent launch of the iPhone SDK, we now have a glimpse of what the iPhone is going to be when it grows up. At the SDK launch, John Doer [sic] of Kleiner Perkins announced that Kleiner would put $100 million into iPhone software start-ups. His exact words in reference to the iPhone were ‘This is the next PC.’ Very few media reports recorded this comment, or if they did, they did not put it into context. In these few words, Doer told us exactly what the iPhone is destined to be,” Bajarin writes. “You might be interested to know that John Doer is one of the most forward-thinking venture capitalists in the world. He became a billionaire by betting on the likes of Amazon, Google, and dozens of the PC industry’s biggest companies.”
MacDailyNews Note: It’s “Doerr” (two r’s) and what he really said, exactly, was “The Mac and the iPod are two truly amazing platforms. There’s over a million developers on the Mac and over 5,000 independent products for the iPod. Today, we’re witnessing history. That’s the launching of the SDK, the creation of the third great platform, the iPhone and the iPod touch. Think about it. What the iPhone’s all about is, in your pocket, you have something that’s broadband and connected all the time. It’s personal. It knows who you are and where you are. That’s a big deal. A really big deal. It’s bigger than the personal computer.“
Bajarin continues, “Certain key components will make this vision of the iPhone becoming the next PC a reality. First, Intel’s new Centrino Atom chips will deliver the processing power needed (data speeds of more than 1 GHz). Couple this with the rich operating systems and next-generation software that can be run on a device such as the iPhone and you have the power of a traditional PC in something that fits into your pocket. If history is our guide, we may look back at this iPhone SDK launch as a defining moment in the world of personal computing.”
Full article – recommended – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “MidWest Mac” for the heads up.]
Wherever you see “iPhone” in any article talking about the future potential of Apple’s new platform’, remember to mentally add “and iPod touch,” if it’s not mentioned. Currently, there are likely just as many, if not more, iPod touch units out there than iPhones. Apple’s multi-touch platform already extends past the iPhone device and will sooner than later grow beyond just the iPod touch, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air.
[UPDATE: 2:54pm EDT: Added MacBook Air, MacBook Pro mentions to Take as per alansky’s and others’ reminders below.]
Actually, I think there are likely fewer Touches out there than iPhones. Nevertheless, MDN is right, that we should always remember that the MID, Mobile Internet Device, platform includes both iPhones and Touches.
Long live my iPod touch!!!
and slow down, partner. There will be another device.
Touch that, MAC dorks.
Ampar:
I don’t know what that means.
Isn’t “MAC” IP address nomenclature?
A MAC address is used on the data link layer of the OSI model.
“Ethernet addresses a host using a unique, 48-bit address called its Ethernet address or Media Access Control (MAC) address. MAC addresses are usually represented as six colon-separated pairs of hex digits, e.g., 8:0:20:11:ac:85.”
No, the new PC is in fact… the iPod Touch.
And later on its extended version, that will include eBook and handwritting: the Mac Touch. That one will be very very useful for all pupils and students around the world. No more books to carry in their heavy bags, homeworks downloaded in the air, etc…
Yes it is.
I have t-Mobile & a iPod touch. AT&T;has bad reception where I live. I bet there are plenty like me. Oh, sent from my iPod touch!
Apple should hit 600. How do we find out who is manipulating Apple stock … then destroy them.
Apple’s multi-touch platform already extends past the iPhone device and will sooner than later grow beyond the iPod touch, too. —MDN
Actually, multi-touch is already making its first appearance on laptop computers in the form of the MacBook Air.
John is still a Do – err
Heck, any Mac Head could have told us that!
Tim Bajarin is one of those analyst that does their homework, writes professionally and respected by many professionals. It’s a shame that his piece will not get as much traction that it deserves in the news world that we live in today. Instead we get garbage like these recent post regarding iPod viruses and that other idiot stating the iPhone is not a smartphone with an OS you can develop software on.
They still don’t know that it’s a computer in your pocket … .
MDN – Multitouch is available on Macbook Pro now, too.
Apple should use “Touch Me’ by Samantha Fox in thir ads…
ok, so not serious about that…
Hey MDN, you might want to remember that the multi-touch features of the MBA have now been put on the MBP as well
MW: one, as in, it’s just not on one device anymore
Sooner than later, it will not be an option to have or not to have an iphone/ipod touch. With the coming native applications, this device will be a given need, as much as the PC is today. It already is! (people don’t know it yet).
B U Y A A P L !!!!
You heard it here first! [removed]void(0);
Bigger than the PC?! Pfft! The iPhone is bigger than Jesus!
I’m looking forward to getting an iPod Touch after June. Wish it had an external speaker though.
The iPhone and iPod Touch mean more to the technology industry than Jesus.
@ Peter
D’oh!
Okay, but the Ruttles are bigger than God.
I might be a tad dense, but isn’t the two finger operations on the last gen macbook pro and others technically multi-touch?
Don’t get me wrong. I really like Tim Bajarian. I respect him. He’s a smart guy, sees Apple in a fair light and has always provided good and balanced perspective. And I like John Doerr too. I’ve read a ton of their reports over the years. Verbatim.
One word of caution about John: he’s smart as hell. He’s been one to bet on companies like Amazon, Google, Netscape and others when they needed VC support. That said, John is a VC, and he’s not afraid of hyping things.
If you recall, at the height of the dot-bomb craze, John crowed that the Internet era of the late 90s “…was the greatest creation of wealth in the history of man.” To which another wag quipped a few years later that the dot-bomb era produced “…the greatest destruction of capital in the history of man.”
I have a feeling Doerr will be proven right. Just take things with a small grain of salt, as his blanket statements often make good press. You’ll see your fair share of comments by pundits that are and will be the direct opposite of what Doerr said, and it’s because they have vested interests of their own. (Doerr of course has a vested interest in seeing Kleiner Perkins’ $100 million investment reap returns many times of that, hence his grandiose statement.) Others want to see Apple destroyed, and a competing system win, be it Windows, Google Android or the current status quo. You’ll see attacks by the telcos who are afraid that all this will destroy their death grip over consumers, by Microsoft, which wants to own and control everything, and by relative newcomers like Google, who want to shove everyone aside.
It’s a great and scary time, not unlike the wild west. But I hope that Apple’s sweeping strategy will be the equivalent to the sheriff coming to town.
Thanks, Mr. Doerr. Thanks, Mr. Bajarian. Don’t underestimate the power of venture capital.
To John Gee:
It’s a Zune Tang related joke. He usually signed off every post with “Suck on that, MAC dorks.”
I’m in agreement with those who have said that there needs to be more in this new line of ‘touch’ products.
The iPhone has a ceiling because only a certain percentage of the population can even get decent AT&T;coverage.
The iPod touch takes care of the rest of us, but there’s still something missing if this thing is to become a whole new platform. I think it’s the 5 to 6 inch version that has more storage — perhaps its first incarnation having a hard disk rather than flash so that it can hold 80 or more gigs at a reasonable price point.
I’m not sure what to call this third thing, but i think the word “iPod” has too much of an entertainment ring to it. As an iPod, I can’t picture large businesses or even schools moving to it in large numbers just because of the name.
Then again, the era of the iPod is still very young, and Apple can always change what people think an iPod is and should be — just as it has done since the days of a monochrome screen with no pictures of video.
This is going to be fun to watch . . .