“Every major player in Techland wants to create the next great platform, of course. What’s new here is that it’s possible for any number of them to succeed… The winners of the platform wars stand to make billions selling devices, selling eyeballs to advertisers, selling services such as music, movies, even computer power on demand. Yet the outcome here is far more important than who makes the most money. The future of the Internet—how we get information, how we communicate with one another and, most important, who controls it—is at stake,” Josh Quittner reports for Time.
Qunittner discusses Google, Facebook, and social networks and then turns to our favorite subject: Apple Inc.
“Apple’s calculus is much simpler: it doesn’t matter who prevails online—Facebook, Google, both or someone else. Steve Jobs simply wants to ensure that you use his devices to get there,” Quittner reports.
“To that end, the new iPhone, which is expected to be announced on June 9, is ‘hugely significant,’ says Marc Andreessen, who helped write the first widely adopted browser, Mosaic, which popularized the Web, and who now presides over a company, Ning, that allows anyone to build his or her own social network. ‘The iPhone, a lot of people around here believe—and I think this is true—is the first real, fully formed computer that you can put in your hand,’ he says. ‘It has all the requirements it needs to be a viable platform,'” Quittner reports.
“Matt Murphy—a venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers who oversees the $100 million iFund to seed start-ups that build great iPhone apps—goes even further. He claims that the iPhone will ‘absolutely be the driver of the post-PC world.’ Murphy points out that the kit needed by developers to build iPhone apps has been downloaded more than 200,000 times, and he estimates that about 1,000 applications will be available to consumers when the iPhone-apps store launches with the phone,” Quittner reports. “‘If you look at so many of the constraints that have held back the mobile ecosystem, Apple basically takes all of those away and provides an open platform, a great device and a user base that’s rabid for these new kinds of applications,’ he says.”
Much more in the full article here.
The calm before the perfect storm.
Thank you, Apple. Thank you, Steve. Thanks for having the vision and running with it.
The app store probably won’t launch until June 30th at the earliest.
I can’t wait for the App Store….what a great idea, I have always believed in and supported shareware…this is one stop shopping.
It’s funny to think that Steve Jobs was probably having concept meetings about the app store, before he took stage in Jan. 2007 and introduced the iPhone…
Behold the title wave of Apps and convertors as they flood the gates of Apple!!!!
I am so on board with this. I remember the people at Buzz Out Loud laughing at the hype that surrounded the announcement of the App store. They completely don’t get it. There are no guarantees, but Apple has positioned itself to be the dominant desktop and mobile OS for the next ten years.
And here is Ballmers reaction
http://www.breitbart.tv/html/108653.html
…and Microsoft has no part in this new platform. Unless they try to copy it. I wonder if anyone at Microsoft actually gets the trouble they are in.
@ iWill
Hear hear.
(my captcha word was ‘true’, haha)
Folks, ain’t it Great to be part of This
Dreamers
Crazy Ones
Square Pegs in Round Hole
Change the World™
BC
And Boom!
Just wondering…
Anyone know about UPGRADING to the new phone? I am pretty sure that most people had to sign a 2 year agreement when they bought the iPhone. Do those of us that upgrade sign an additional 2 year agreement making it a 3 year commitment? And what of the deluge of Generation one iPhones? Ebay will be rocking. $99 generation on iPhones.
Dang! I think I just heard Ballmer fart from fear when he read that.
Please make my pitiful amount of shares of AAPL rise significantly so I can at least use it to buy a new computer and an iPhone combined.
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I won’t be upgrading. I read that letter from MS and cried me a river of pity for them. I will buy a WinMobile device next time. NOT!
@ TT
That was the last PlaysForSure™ customer.
I believe the doubters are about to get smacked down. I don’t think that the iPhone will completely take over, but it’s obviously the first device to show a glimpse of what can really be done. I can’t wait to see what the Apple bashers have to say in January when the SDK has had 6 months to get entrenched. I won’t say ‘bloodbath’, but it’s going to be a bona fide eye opener for a lot of people. There aren’t many things that come along that immediately feel revolutionary, but from the first time I saw the iPhone keynote a year and a half ago, I knew I had seen a stretch of the REAL road ahead…
Mosaic, that was WOW. You would need MemoryErase™, a time machine and a few months orientation to really get the idea but it was, well, WOW.
WOW is now a fart word thanks to Vista, a faraway view of something that looks good.
iPhone is wicked cool and more. But don’t bet your life on it, take out insurance – understand the potential and the Matrix.
From the article, “look at so many of the constraints that have held back the mobile ecosystem, Apple basically takes all of those away”. That puts the shit up the establishment, not just the competition, for who was it that put the constraints in to place? Prepare to defend for the FUD and much worse will fly.
@MDN don’t delete yet another post, this one is cryptic enough to cover your asses.
And now back to work, battling the evildoers…….
The iPhone is the thin end of a very big wedge.
Why do you think the App Store won’t launch until then, Cubert?
makes a lot more sense than the “iPhone future of gaming” article, i will give ’em that…..
Jobs is right – without friendly, easy-to-use devices, the internet is nothing. Google, Facebook, or whatever else pops up will fail if it is not super easy to use and if it doesn’t work with the most favored devices.
Jobs is also sinking Apple’s teeth into the revenue streams: Google, mobile phone monthly subscriptions, .Mac, and regular software and OS upgrades.
I remember when the iPhone first came out I though the same thing … this is a full fledged computer in your hand! …
This will be revolutionary …… … Then I read some of the reactions and it was evident how clueless people and even “analysts” are about technology … “But it only has a 2 mega pixel camera!” …..
Yeah .. so what … its’ a friggin computer in your hand you dolt!
They just shrunk a friggin desktop or laptop into a device that you can fit in your shirt pocket! ……..
Wow folks, you just noticed that this was a copy of a PDA by HTC from 4 years ago. Ive had mine since 06 and can do more than an iphone with it right out of the box. Phone, WIFI, Infrared, Full mobil office documents, calender, MP3, Video, Texting, Web browsing, Touchscreen (no not Multi) Gaming, Sync for contacts and calender with pc at offic, home and other phones. Hell the thing is even a universal remote for my home theatre.
So really what is different than the Iphone. Marketing oh and price. Paid 250 for mine, with 2 batteries, cradle and and sync cable for home and laptop.