MacWorld 2007 - Apple TV, iPhone

[Jessterw]

It seems that the iPhone is looking more evolutionary than revolutionary now that we've had a chance to step back and think.

I'm not sure anyone truly thought it was revolutionary... well, except Steve

Remember, the iPhone has been in development for 2 1/2 years with some obvious planning before that point. There have been rumours and concept designs floating around for it for about as long. Touchscreens and "multi-touch" interaction with them isn't new either, but how Apple is using it to interact with the device is relatively unique ('relatively' being the keyword here).

Let's be honest about this. There's nothing that the iPhone does that other devices don't. It's how the iPhone does those things and how it lets the interact with them that is different. Same goes for the basic interface. A device with only a touchscreen as an input method is far from new and there have been concept devices that look like the iPhone around for a very long time.

We're talking about Apple here - they love to exaggerate the importance or originality of their products even when they know there are similar or pre-existing products out there.

Newton II?

More so than you might think. It's entirely possible that the iPhone (in demo form) uses the very same processor that the beloved Newton did. Somewhat amusing is that the Newton was one of the first products Jobs killed off after returning to Apple.

[az]

The user interface is IMHO the most important part of any application, and where the good are separated from the great.

Apart from that, the iPhone looks like the best of both worlds to me. I've held off on buying an mp3 player yet because I don't want to lug around more than one gadget, and I'd have liked a PDA as well, now I can have all three, and with what looks like a good UI and nice looks. Sorry, but Treos are just damn ugly (and I don't think they come with 8 GB memory). There are a few windows mobile smartphones, but from what I've seen, they're almost impossible to use without a stylus (and thus two free hands) and fall flat as mp3 players anyway.

The only drawback I see with the iPhone is that it doesn't support UMTS/3G, but it looks like the european version will be UMTS. Oh, and the price, of course.

[Jessterw]

No argument from me on the iPhone beating everything on the market with its interface, but that's what Apple does extremely well at. The jury is obviously still out on how well it works on a day-to-day basis, but those that have had a chance to play with it are infatuated with how it works.

There's still some shortcomings and oddly missing features (or limitations), not the least of which is no support for third-party development (at this point). Of course Apple has until July to sort things out if they so choose, and it's apparent that future models will offer improvements.

I've said it already, but there will be a 3G model. Just no word on what markets it will be released into besides, say, Japan.

[az]

I've read somewhere the european model will be 3g from the get go - of the four major carriers in Germany, for instance, only two have EDGE, but I think all of them have 3G networks. I know Vodafone has no EDGE but 3G here.

I think third-party software will prove to be plenty, seeing as this thing runs OSX, and third-party hardware should come soon enough from the usual suspects (Griffin, Belkin etc.). I doubt Apple would let the licensing revenues slip through their hands, I'm sure they made loads of money with licensing fees for the iPods. I guess they were just being very secretive up to now, or the add-on manufacturers are under NDA and don't want to lose their licenses.

[Wombat]

I think third-party software will prove to be plenty, seeing as this thing runs OSX, and third-party hardware should come soon enough from the usual suspects (Griffin, Belkin etc.). I doubt Apple would let the licensing revenues slip through their hands, I'm sure they made loads of money with licensing fees for the iPods. I guess they were just being very secretive up to now, or the add-on manufacturers are under NDA and don't want to lose their licenses.

Two things:
1) It apparently doesn't run OSX. Don't expect people to be able to program to it. It may happen, but it's apparently not open API.

2) Where we saw 3rd-party stuff for the iPod, cell stuff is an entirely different market. Cell providers, at least in the states, often lock down their phones as much as they can, so that they can charge you for a service that does what you need. Such lock-down is likely with the iPhone.

[Jessterw]

It does run OS X, just not Mac OS X. Same underlying technologies, different implementation. More on this will be forthcoming I'm sure.

Third-party development is a no at this point, but it's not something they've ruled out. What's likely to happen is that Apple will provide software updates to/for the phone that may include additional widgets or such from third-party developers that have convinced Apple that their software should be included (or vice-versa).

Now on the hardware (or accessory) front, the iPhone has a standard iPod dock connector, so most (if not all) iPod accessories should work with it.

Keep in mind that the phone doesn't come out until the summer in the US, so Apple has some time to gauge the response to what they've presented.

[az]

Shouldn't these qidgets be cross-platform? I thought widgets were not real programs, but more like fancy scripts running inside an environment like Konfabulator, Opera or whatever? I do think Opera widgets are cross platform, as they are essentially chromeless AJAX web pages.