WWDC: Christmas in June
Woohoo! WWDC provided almost everything we'd hoped for or rumored. Unlike many WWDC keynotes of the past, it was chock full of good value. No padding here. No socks and ties.
No Steve, no worries
The reason for such a bumper list of announcements could in part be about Apple making a statement that it is not Steve reliant. And that's a smart move. What's more, his stand-ins did a good job. The French guy I had trouble understanding and couldn't help chuckling each time he called the dock the "duck", but I'd have him back tomorrow coz he took the mickey out of Microsoft so well.
It was a surprise to see a couple of demos go awry - both involving the iPhone accessories API. Not a good sign, but Murphy's Law I guess. Although Murphy hardly ever shows up when Steve's there. Maybe he's too scared to.
When Steve does return, what is left for him? The desperately needed 15" MacBook? Unlikely Steve would launch that alone. That's more likely to just appear one day with a press release.
But, the one thing we still haven't seen from Apple is the rumored netbook device, whether it be a 10" MacBook, or the very long rumored MacinTouch. For those Steve might make an appearance.
MacBook realigned
For me, I guess, I can claim a little bragging rights, as my article last week correctly predicted (ok, reiterated rumors of) a cheap iPhone and the realigning of all unibody laptops into the MacBook Pro line (although I did add the suggestion of FireWire on the 13", so I'll take that one). I missed on the hoped for 15" white MacBook. But that's got to be around the corner; the 13" looks too lonely.
For MacBook customers, they're left with no choices. And in the laptop market choice is king. If you want a consumer Apple laptop, you had better want a 13" one. Because if you want 15" you are going to have to spend a whopping US$700 more.
Apple surely won't let that last. In fact, I predict that Apple will release a 15" MacBook for US$1099 and cut the 13" to US$899. And before the end of September - nicely aligned with the northern hemisphere back-to-school.
Despite my optimism last week, (albeit tempered with a question mark), in the end I was surprised to see the new MacBook Pro lineup announced, as the rumor trail had gone very cold on that one, trickling to a murmur.
Could it be that Apple is doing a better job of keeping things secret? Or are Mac rumors passe, with everyone more interested in scooping on the iPhone?
iPhone 3GS great but not compelling
The great thing about the iPhone 3GS is it's not too great. In fact, the iPhone 3G 8GB is now excellent value for not much less functionality. Masses of people will feel no compulsion at all to buy the 3GS, instead quite happy to buy the standard 3G. Apple is going to sell an absolute truckload of them.
For folks wanting to sell their 16GB 3G, the dropping of this model is an absolute boon, as it will keep its resell value up, whereas the 8GB will drop more. If you want a 16GB 3G, the only place you can get it is someone selling secondhand. Cool - coz I've got one. Although, I'd probably hand it onto my wife, or get her the 3GS.
(I can talk about selling, of course, because I'm lucky enough to not be on a contract, which is one of the reasons I chose that path.)
iPhone 3.0 wows
The iPhone update 3.0 really wowed -- as it did last time it was shown. Getting it will be like gettig a whole new iPhone. Although, as Beeb rightly points out, some of those features (eg copy and paste, message forwarding, and MMS) should have been there from the outset.
Snow Leopard dirt cheap
I don't know what's going on at Apple in Steve's absence, because Apple is going "sale!" mad. First the laptops had their prices slashed, then iPhone 3.0 is free, and now someone has marked the Snow Leopard upgrade at only US$29. In relation to previous upgrades and useful new features and improvements, plus the cost, US$99 wouldn't have surprised at all. But $29? That's giving it away.
Although, MacRumors has just posted confirmation that it will be Intel only.
The big moments
There were plenty of whoops and roars from the crowd throughout the jampacked keynote, but two stood out.
Firstly, the one when TomTom was introduced. It was like every single person in the audience went "Yes!!" - and who could blame them, this is big.
Add to the already lengthy list of devices the iPhone replaces, a fully functional turn-by-turn GPS unit.
The other announcement that stood out for me as drawing a significant reaction from the crowd was the announcement AT&T wouldn't be onboard with tethering for a few months yet. After the earlier announcement it would also be late with MMS, the audience - if I remember right - actually laughed when showed the tethering slide sans AT&T's name. AT&T has become a joke.
In a report on MacRumors about tethering and AT&T, the vote (i.e. response to the story) is currently running at 90 positive to a massive 1200 negatives. I've never seen a vote so heavily negative as that. How on earth did Apple end up in this relationship with AT&T?
Multi-function handheld computer
Speaking of jokes, it's a joke to still call the iPhone a smartphone. Apple does it as simple modesty and probably to give it something to compare to. But it's so far off the mark. The iPhone, the Android, the Pre are in an entirely new market segment of multi-function handheld computers. And the iPhone is leaving the other two for dead.
And Blackberry? It's in a different game, it makes smartphones still. Did you notice in the graph of internet browsing, Blackberry didn't even feature. The Blackberry bears little to compare it to the iPhone or even the other two MFHCs.
Final word
For once we got almost everything we hoped for from a keynote, with a small scale Mac device the only thing missing. Maybe Apple delivered, or the rumor mill got it right.
13" MacBook Pros with Firewire and more; MacBook Air and MacBook Pro updates; Decent price cuts to MacBook Pros and Air; Super cheap Snow Leopard with some cool new features; iPhone 3.0 in two weeks also with lots of cool new features; iPhone 3GS with enough new stuff to be great but not to much to make the 3G owners feel bad; and an iPhone 3G price cut.
It really was Christmas in June.
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Comments
. The iPhone, the Android, the Pre are in an entirely new market segment of multi-function handheld computers.
I’m not so sure I’d embrace this categorization if I were you. As a hand-held computer, they’re all a joke. What kind of computer can’t handle basic multi-tasking, sells apps from one store and one store only, and costs $3000 every two years to own? It’s like saying that the Razr isn’t really a phone, it’s a camera - a really lousy, expensive as hell camera.
I like the new iPhone. I’ll probably be getting one at the end of the summer. I want more from the competition but they’re just not there yet. I’m a big fan of ubiquity in my gadgets, and the iPhone is it.
I thought the Mac rollout was underwhelming. A couple of little hardware bumps and adding the 13” to the Pro line for reasons I find dubious. It was welcome news that Snow Leopard would only be $29.
What kind of computer can’t handle basic multi-tasking, sells apps from one store and one store only, and costs $3000 every two years to own?
I think this is an example of the computer companies really, really want you to buy. Is the iPhone a computer? No doubt about it. Compared to my first mac the iPhone is way over powered. I had 40 MB of drive space, the iPhone starts with an order of magnitude more. My original mac couldn’t do color, the iPhone can. To top it off the iPhone can’t multitask and neither could my first 4 macs.
These are the computers that companies have always wanted to sell, microsoft has a hard on for the subscription model and Apple’s yearning to control everything is obvious. So these are great computers, fantastic machines and so forth. Both from the perspective of Apple and Palm and RIM and from the perspective of users. For Apple and other companies this is what they’ve wanted to sell you forever. For end users this is a way to always be in contact. Is the iPhone more computer than the average user needs? Yes. Well, not if they use flash but otherwise…
You’re right though, if that was the marketing pitch:
The new MacBook, 80 a month, no multitasking, 3 inch screen
it would fail. So they pitch it as the best phone ever instead of the worst mac since OS 9.
Though I think the ads would be cool if they said “1997 in your pocket, and it gets calls too”
So basically, as a phone, it’s the rockin’ awesome bee’s knees. As a computer, it’s sort of okay if you compare it to a Mac from 20 years ago (minus the big screen and being able to do word processing, spreadsheets, or any other really useful things that computers could do as far back as 1979).
So why do they keep insisting that it’s a computer platform instead of the best phone to ever hit the market?
Coz you can’t call it a phone!
And you can’t even call it a smartphone.
No more than you can call it a games unit, a GPS, a camera or an internet device. It’s all of these things and more.
Because it can’t do some things a desktop computer can do, is that reason enough to not call it a computer? Is a netbook not a computer because it can’t run Final Cut?
The iPhone is a computer. It isn’t a desktop computer nor is a desktop computer a handheld computer.
But is it the applications that define a computer? No Word, no computer?
Handheld computers are not new, in the past we called them PDAs. Np pne ever disputed when they were called handheld computers. When phones started getting merged with PDAs we called them smartphones.
Apple, Google and Palm have taken that to another level again.
But now, even though these ultrasmartphones are much more powerful and functional than handheld computers of 10 years ago, we suddenly want to say they’re not computers - why? Simply because you can’t edit a Office documents on them? Or because they’re expensive? (that’s never stopped computers getting the computer tag) Or because they have limited multitasking (again, not a hinderance to the computer moniker in the past)? Or because only one store sells apps for them? (not sure how that precludes a device from being called a computer).
Because my usage of my iPhone overlaps so much with what I can do - or did do -with my desktop, I feel happy calling the iPhone a computer.
It is a handheld computer so it’s not going to have the functionality of a desktop computer but then being handheld enables it to do things my desktop can’t
I’m not saying it’s not a computer. But then, everything’s a computer these days. My car. My camera. Hell, my refrigerator. I’m saying that, as computers go, it’s a really crappy, insanely expensive computer that can’t multi-task and costs $2000. Netbooks can’t do much, true, but they only cost $300.
So given the choice between pushing it as a really badass phone or a mediocre/expensive computer, you should really push the phone part of it.
Let’s look at those one by one
Crappy
Crappy because of what you can’t do? I look at it the other way, that is, it’s fantastic because of what it can do. Off-roaders and sports cars are both cars and both excellent cars and both overlap their usage. But both are suited to specific uses that the other is not. This doesn’t make them crappy because they can’t do everything.
Insanely expensive… costs $2000
Well that’s a furphy and a half when we’re discussing whether it’s a computer or not. Mine cost me AU$847. It’s the phone charges and wireless broadband that bumps the cost to US$2000.
And consider, you’re going to have cell phone charges anyway, with whatever phone you have.
If you don’t want the phone features and costs, just buy an iPod touch: US$229. If I wanted wireless broadband on my laptop, it would at a minimum add AU$15/mth and that’s on a 36 month contract and a measly 200MB. So my laptop suddenly costs at least an extra AU$540. If I want something approaching unlimited access, it’s AU$45/mth, adding AU$1620.
So my laptop, when compared fairly to my iPhone is suddenly “insanely expensive” also.
There’s plenty of phones on the market that do a lot less than the iPhone but cost just as much, so we really shouldn’t judge the cost of the iPhone as a computer, based on its phone costs.
Further, if we are comparing costs, we should also consider the savings of a multi-function device. It replaces a pocket camera, a GPS, a PDA, a phone, a DS or PSP etc.
If you bought it outright and never used it’s phone or wireless broadband capabilities, it’s still very good value.
Can’t multi-task
That is disappointing but is just an inconvenience and relative to the device, so see the “crappy” points above.
So, overall, when you take out the cost of it as a phone, and consider what it can do (rather than just what it can’t do) including where it can duplicate or replace your desktop, then I think it is a great computer at a decent price.
Crappy because of what you can’t do? I look at it the other way, that is, it’s fantastic because of what it can do.
We’re not talking about being able to cook breakfast or solve global warming. As a computer, you can’t write a paper on it and, for the last two years, you couldn’t even copy & paste. This would be the car equivalent of not being able to make a left turn. You, as the Apple, apologist, would argue, “But look at the all the ways it CAN turn.”
Further, if we are comparing costs, we should also consider the savings of a multi-function device. It replaces a pocket camera, a GPS, a PDA, a phone, a DS or PSP etc.
I have a phone that takes pictures, and it doesn’t replace my camera. Again, it’s a pretty lousy version of all of those things except a phone. And if I bought all of those things, that actually do those tasks well, it would still cost less than one iPhone.
That is disappointing but is just an inconvenience
Would you go to the store right now and buy a desktop computer that didn’t have multi-tasking? Windows 7 Starter Edition was, by comparison, going to limit you to run 3 apps at a time. Understandably, people went so nuts that MS changed that limitation. And yet that was 3 times the number of apps you could run at a time on the “computer” in your pocket. So I’m sure you were one of the ones out there defending MS’s decisions, “but look at the things you CAN do with it!”
“So why do they keep insisting that it’s a computer platform instead of the best phone to ever hit the market?”
Well if you look at the Apple marketing you’ll note that they pitch it as a phone that does a whole lot more so you are more in tune with the official Apple pitch than Chris Howard.
On the other hand Chris is right, it is a pretty great computer. For most people a computer anymore is the internet. I know you make movies and run FCP and Chris Howard does Photoshop and programs stuff. But you guys are exceptions, not the average user. The average user writes emails, browses the web, does some social media stuff and plays games. For my Dad or sister the iPhone is a great computer, it can do it all and live in their pocket.
I’d opine that the iPhone is almost enough computer for most people. As for the price, well, if you asked everyone for the total cost of the contract and phone up front people would run scared. But it is like a frog in boiling water, if you get it 80 bucks at a time it doesn’t seem so bad, you might be willing to get boiled alive.
Someday people won’t be gouged for data on their phone and cable on their tv and data on their network they’ll just pay for data… Well, I hope so anyway