Well, now…

Wasn’t that interesting?

The Macalope would like all the people who asked “But what could Apple possibly bring to the cell phone market?” please close your laptops, put your heads down for five minutes and think about what you’ve done.

Ye of little faith.

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Looks like we’re going to have to get us some of them big Canadian-style crows so we have enough to go around.

Trackbacks
  • MacWorld Prediction Scorecard…

    I couldn’t have been a whole lot more incorrect.
    My predictions were specifically for Macworld, but apply also to the whole of 2007. I’ll revisit them again at the end of the year, and i think my batting average will greatly improve. 🙂
    I…

Comments
  • John Muir:

    To be honest, the thing which surprised me the most is that it’s being called iPhone regardless of Linksys’ recent stunt. I was totally ready for iPod Phone or something like that. But on to the really juicy stuff:

    Is it just me or have Apple announced the coolest tablet in all existence?

    I wanna see one of those close up and try to figure out its processing power (ultra low voltage Intel Core (2) Duo or what?) and just how much leeway it has in apps. I’m expecting a pretty rigid iTunes driven software management like the 5G iPod and its limited games library. But still, Safari + Mail + *that* form factor + touchscreen + fullscreen video iPod + everything to shake a stick at = drooltastic! 😀

  • I never doubted for a moment that it, if brought to light, would exceed all expectations….and it did indeed.

  • It’s moaning, I know, but my single gripe with the keynote is this:

    9:20, Steve, after showing the Vista spoof ad: “We’ll only be talking about the Mac today.”
    9:21-11:00 Steve: [not a word about anything Mac-related]

    Where the hell is 10.5? I hereby predict, btw, that 10.5 will take _a lot_ of visual and interface cues from the iPhone OS X to Mac OS X. Time Machine is a super-sized iPhone widget. You read it here first.

  • Oh, and my recent renaming on this blog of the Zune to the Xbox mini was confirmed by M$ today when they announced games for Zune in 2008. Booyah!

  • Ken:

    They’re in negotiations with Cisco–at least that’s what MacObserver says.

  • I thought Apple had iPhone all tied up as a trademark. Hey ho.

  • Well they must be pretty certain they’re going to get the name. The only thing that I’m disappointed about. Well, two-fold.

    Doesn’t look like this phone is ever going to be available in Canada. Cingular doesn’t exist up here and it doesn’t look like at this point Apple isn’t even going to let you buy it without a contract, besides what will probably be the stratospheric price of doing it like that. That’s disappointing.

    Secondly the iPod line-up, at least on the video high end, is completely overshadowed by this product. I would have loved to see the same form factor and interface, only on a video iPod without the phone option. And you could get it either way you liked. That would have been a smart move for Apple I think.

  • Eric J:

    heh… I was just looking up Kannelos’ column

    this is the phone of my dreams — even down to the widgets support, which is such a perfect interface for the web from a phone and so obvious — but I never would have imagined that they could cram OS X in it. What the hell kind of processor is it running??

  • The iPhone is years ahead of everything currently available, and you can bet your whole collection of coupons they already have version 2.0 in development. Compare it to the useless-feature-laden festival of fuck-ups Microsoft calls “Zune.”

    Steve Jobs just put the whole world on notice: Get off your asses and innovate or get left behind. I liked his Wayne Gretzky quote: I don’t skate to where the puck is, I skate to where the puck is going.

  • Yuda:

    As long as there’s a GSM provider in Canada, I’m sure the iPhone will make it north of the border.

  • Dhrakar:

    Up here in Fairbanks (Alaska), we call em ‘Dumpster Chickens’. These ravens fly down south to us during the winter and are some of the biggest birds I’ve ever seen. It’s pretty amazing to see these birds wandering around at about -35F or so 😛
    http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF17/1702.html

  • Bob Jones:

    The iPhone is all fine and good, but when is the other shoe going to drop.

    Updates on 10.5? iWork? iLife?

    That Apple has dropped computer from their name underscores this Macworld keynote that was about everything but Macs.

  • John Muir:

    True, it was Mac lite for a Macworld but then again looking at the conventional and online media I’m seeing Apple Apple Apple Apple Apple Apple …. so it wasn’t such an unwise choice!

    I saw the first 15 mins or so via streaming video before it croaked because of everyone jumping on it. Just enough time to see Jobs say something like “and that’s it for Macs today, we’ve got a lot of great stuff coming along in the next few months but for the rest of this morning I want to talk about new things”.

    I hope he was right about the next few months. In fact, I’m sure he was, but what sort of event are we to look forward to for Leopard’s release and the iLife/Work apps? There’d better be a Stevenote!

    Damn it, I was waiting on the revamped Pages 3.0 as well!

    You know, I’m just wondering whether these iPhone prototypes are running 10.5 instead of 10.4 “for iPhone”. 😉

  • dino:

    “You know, I’m just wondering whether these iPhone prototypes are running 10.5 instead of 10.4 “for iPhone”.”
    Well, Steve did say that it had Core Animation in it, which is a feature of Leopard.

  • Not bad not bad. I really like this bit at the bottom of the iPhone web page:

    “This device has not been authorized as required by the rules of the Federal Communications Commission. This device is not, and may not be, offered for sale or lease, or sold or leased, until authorization is obtained.”

    Meaning?

  • Dave:

    Cingular is the US partner only. Steve said the phone will be available in Europe by the end of the year, and Asia next year; you can be certain it will be available in Canada also (assuming you do have GSM there.)

    I would think it totally likely that they will come out with a video-only/no phone version that costs less. Who really knows how many folks will shell out $500-600 for one of these? I totally want one, but can I justify paying that much? It’s totally unique, with unique integration, but still…

    I think Apple will be having a steady stream of product announcements this year. Certainly a lot of them will be saved for the World Wide Developers Conference this summer, which is as big as Macworld, but on the pro side. Hell, they have to save some big announcements for then, or they’ve got nothing to show. I’m really hoping they don’t hold Leopard til then, however….

  • Peter:

    A little birdie told me it will be available in Canada in time for Christmas 2007. However, Apple has some trademarks to clear here as well Link.

    And speaking of Canada (or places with winters in general), I hope they’ve solved the can’t-use-this-device-with-gloves-on problem that plagues us all with the iPod’s touch wheel.

  • Arthur,

    That’s not what Steve said. He said “That’s all we’ll be saying about the Mac today.”

  • Ken:

    Most of the sites reporting on the keynote live completely got that line wrong. I think they were all feeding off of EnGadget or something. Watching the keynote, it’s very clear that he said that that was all about the Mac today.

    Grr.

  • Mitch:

    Although I would certainly like to own one of these, I do have some negative feelings about this…

    1) Too bad it’s tied to a provider. Especially as this will slow down worldwide availability (or at least usability) dramatically. All this integration with services and networks is great, but what if you are in Europe and can’t have all this nice voicemail and messaging stuff?

    2) Like people have mentioned before, why no upgrade of the iPod itself. If they can put all of that in, they certainly can make an iPod out of it. And suspect they will within a couple of months.

  • Humble pie is in the oven!

    2 things about this:

    * no 3G is an issue for me personally
    * it’s crazy expensive

    Otherwise it’s really cool that Apple has shaken up the mobile market!

  • My dearest antlered Mac: yes, that is true. I was in #macdev and the consensus there was that he said the exact opposite. My bad.

    In any case, we’ll now have to look to the months ahead where there are sure to be a series of special events giving us all the other things we crave. It is strange that they didn’t do it the other way around, i.e. Macworld for Leopard and Special Event for iPhone but I guess they are about to submit it to the FCC any day now.

    About the iPhone name, I read this quote of a Cisco rep on BetaNews:
    “Given Apple’s numerous requests to use the iPhone trademark, and extensive discussions with them,” the representative told BetaNews, “it is our belief that with their announcement today, Apple intends to agree to the final documents and public statements that were distributed to them last night, and that addressed the last few remaining items. We expect to receive a signed agreement today.”

    So Apple signed jack and Cisco is simply assuming that Apple implicitly agreed to their license terms because they made the iPhone name public. If I was Cisco, I’d get my army of lawyers ready for war, though Steve may just sign a contract where he has to pay money for every iPhone sold..

  • KG:

    Nicely done, Macalope. I only have couple concerns.

    Will the screen be as easily scratched as the 5G iPod? Will it be fingerprint-proof? Time will tell.

    Why no memory slot? Because they have to have something to keep you upgrading(?).

  • Matt:

    Oh man I hope the iPhone has some sort of education discount. I might be able to rationalize buying it then. Also, does it use a SIM card or will I have to transfer my numbers manually?

  • Sigivald:

    Kordan, Dave: I’d be shocked if the “plain iPod” didn’t get a facelift by June to match.

    Gustaf: Didn’t they say 3G will be coming? EDGE is already “capable” of 3G, according to Wikipedia, if the underlying network is.

    What real-world data rates will be across the US, compared with nominally-3G products, in actual use, beats heck out of me.

  • Mark E Mark:

    You Canadians forget….. Cingular is patr of AT&T. In Canada AT&T is partners with (read owns) Rogers. Rogers ia a GSM provider, so in all likelyhood we will get the same phone as the US….

  • Blain:

    They did say that they’re working on a 3G version. I do hope they don’t stick to just Cingular, because I trust AT&T only as far as I can throw them.

    But I see this as brialliance, distribution-wise, along with the 1G iPod and iTunes store, and even a bit to the x86 switch:

    1) Aim for the best chance of success in demographic (1G ipod to mac users)

    2) Aim for the most familiar market first, and spread out. (iTMS started US-only)

    3) Partner with the largest company first (Intel over AMD)

    4) Start with a profit-making device, and then as you improve, lower prices to match costs. (Remember the sticker shock of the 1G iPod?)

    Truth be told, I misread Macworld’s stream too. And I was so certain that the iPhone was a myth that even after seeing it in the news stream, I thought it a prank, or test message that slipped through.

    Hey, if the iPhone is running some x86 varient, does that mean we’ll see iPhone-specific code pop up in the darwin source?

  • KG: In the post above there’s a link to a piece by David Pogue who notes that the finish does pick up some smudges but is pretty good.

    Mark E. Mark: Cingular’s CEO (good gravy what a horrible speaker) made a large point of Cingular’s relationship with AT&T.

    Matt: It does use a SIM card but it’s locked. So, the Macalope guesses you can probably transfer your numbers in — or have them transferred in — but not out. Although there are ways of unlocking locked phones.

    Plus, if you’re a Mac user, you’re going to sync your contacts from Address Book.

    As for the lack of Mac news, the Macalope (and several of the other attendees he was with) doesn’t think this means there won’t be revs to iLife, iWork or Mac hardware or that Leopard is delayed. Jobs is clearly emotionally attached to the iPhone (he was literally on the verge of tears – it was very moving… which is an odd thing to say about a cell phone announcement) and wanted this keynote to focus on it to the exclusion of all else.

  • huxley:

    > You Canadians forget….. Cingular is patr of AT&T. In Canada AT&T is partners with (read owns) Rogers. Rogers ia a GSM provider, so in all likelyhood we will get the same phone as the US….

    AT&T used to be partners in Rogers AT&T Wireless (which used to be Cantel AT&T Wireless), but that joint venture became Rogers Wireless and is now entirely owned by Rogers Communication.

    Rogers is apparently pretty hot for the iPhone and I believe they are the largest GSM provider in Canada (and they have several EDGE networks too).

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