To say these are crazy times sounds commonplace, which indicates how crazy these times actually are. It is hard to keep track of all the announcements, fads (all trends are fads unless they become a ‘phad,’ wrote William Safire in his column to point out that wrapping the trend is making the trend), buzzes, blogs, gadgets, widgets, etc. when the world’s largest consumer electronics shows (CES) and MacWorld take place at the same time and executives, media, and geeks vie for the next big thing that is hot for a day.
Well, the iPhone is built to last. Says one comment from the Gizmodo blog: “5 years from now, we'll all wonder what life was like before the iPhone came out. MS will be releasing a competing product called the Phune, touting their slogan ‘welcome to the circle jerk’."
CES had its big announcements, too (and apparently, according to the CES web site, an “electrifying keynote from Bill Gates”) but the winner of attention, ladies and gentlemen, clearly is – what a surprise – once more Apple (Computer) Inc. Business 2.0 blogged in real-time about Jobs’ keynote and Technorati is being monopolized by Apple-related posts. My favorite moment in the keynote: When Jobs located a nearby Starbucks via Google maps and ordered “4,000 lattes” for the audience.
The word is out, the phone is out, the buzz is out:
Engadget highlights that the iPhone runs OS X. Gizmodo calls it ever-so-subtly the "Jesus Phone" (and the first thing the reporter did was calling his mom). On the frogblog, Sean Madden is excited about the possibilities for developers that come with the iPhone, arguing that Apple has created one of the most accessible development platforms for data transfer and productivity apps to date on a mobile phone. Adam Richardson, on the other side, expects that the phone may cause a mass phenomenon of people’s current cellphones meeting unfortunate accidents.
My first impression: The iPhone reminds me of futuristic design concepts presented years ago or of product visions as seen in “Minority report” (and the picture where the finger touches the touchscreen looks like a scene from E.T. – calling home). The iPhone is the future as we know it. But there is no element of surprise, really. The expectations were so high that the only thing Apple could have done to exceed them would have been to present a flying horse. They didn’t. It’s just a phone, after all.
ms *will* make an iphone? htc already has a whole line of window mobile 6 phones with already more functionality than the iphone, and more freedom of course (at the cost of some user friendliness i guess).
iphone = stay on the road which you can't leave and you will get you where you want to go.
htc with wm6 = do what you want but don't come crying when you're lost.
Posted by: kurisu | April 02, 2008 at 06:22 AM