Category: iPhone

iTunes, iPod Touch and Windows

iTunes, iPod Touch and Windows Integration

It’s nearly a week since I upgraded my iPod from a generation 3 to one of the cool, uber-geek iPod Touch devices. As a 99.5% Windows Vista user, I am impressed.

The iPod Touch works on our home wifi. In the morning I check emails and other overnight happenings from the comfort of my bed in Safari.  The synchronisation between my Internet Explorer (Vista) and Safari (iPod Touch) browsers works well.

It beeps at me when I have an appointment. My contacts are in there.

All it needs is a mini email application. A slightly less finiky onscreen keyboard. A camera and a VoIP. Oh, that’s right — that’s an iPhone!

Additional iPhone Thoughts and Notes

  • The “Apple” icon sits in front of the iPhone and tv. (yes, lower case). It seems Apple in deeply committed to rebranding as a consumer brand. New iPods, when they announce this year, will also be dramatically changed.
  • The iPhone is most likely a platform on which future high-end iPods will be released. The OS, as stated by Apple, is MacOS X. Essentially Apple have a common base OS from their multi-CPU boxes to the smallest device: in total control of the UI/UX. Or maybe smaller-configuration Mac tablets?
  • The only successful service Apple has is the iTunes store, which sells nearly 60 songs per second. In a connected world of desktops to phones, online services become more critical to tie things together. Both Google and Yahoo! were onstage with Steve at the keynote. There is more to come, here.
  • The target market is the current iPod user, not the standard Mac user. There are way more iPod users in the world than Mac users.
  • Apple has some surprises in Leopard to tie iPhone into the OS. Some people are thinking that there are components of the iPhone that will be in the desktop Leopard.
  • Can it do VoIP? The Wifi would lend itself to this. Breaking the lock on current carriers would be revolutionary. I suspect Apple is going to start out with carrier’s help and breakout. Or, they could test hardware-only sales in free-er 3G markets (Asia, Europe) where there is no lock-in.
  • The specs on the camera are not specified, apart from “2 Megapixels”
  • The operating system market from phones is rather saturated, but Apple could license this OS as there is no substantial potential revenue loss (if they did this with MacOS, they are risking their hardware revenues)
  • The whole experience of using the phone (as a piece of hardware) puts all other interfaces to shame. This alone will benefit all phone users as Nokia et al struggle to make their phones work like an iPhone.

More excellent notes on MediaVidea

Hands on the iPhone from David Pogue, NYT

Apple, Inc: The 2007 Agenda Setting Week of Keynotes

Steve Jobs renamed his company to Apple, Inc. Renamed the iTV to Apple TV and the iPod to iPhone. Well, not quite. However, the iPhone is an iPod with a new OS: a baby MacOS X and lots of connectivity. If you live in the US.

Apple’s first round of product announcements for 2007 at Macworld have been rumoured for many months – if not years. I think the build up has led to disappointment in the Mac-crowd.

The iPhone is available in June in North America, based on a 2 year exclusive with Cingular. Europe is slated for the end of 2007 and Asia for 2008. With the current shenanigans in Australia with Telstra’s new network and others scrambling – I am not asking for an iPhone for Christmas 2007. GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth etc. etc. are all in a nice package where the screen is a touchscreen. Apple have innovated on the UX with multi-finger gestures to make all the apps work in a small package. Looking at the online demos, as you would expect – Apple have gone a long way to correct the current staid phone user interfaces

The Apple TV seems like a nice idea: a media center with wireless and smart integration with the Macs on your local network. Seems a little late and me-too. Not 1080i, nor can it play HD/Blueray DVDs. Niftly little thing, but it doesn’t do enough quite yet.

In what was a strange keynote, there were no MacOS X (a good call since all that would occur are many Leopard vs. Vista comparisons), no new Macs (strange since Intel announced new Quad-core processors overnight) or no new software. The keynote should have been given at CES, not MacWorld!

My opinion is that Apple Inc, as it moves out of the wild-west of computers into the highly controlled world of telecommunications and television is going to have to learn the art of partnering quicker. It is not yet big enough to push its weight around to get its own way. But like the iPod/iTunes store franchise: this could all change within a very short time. Apple is late to the game with both these products, and has a long road ahead to be successful.

Boom! The Ari Gold (Entourage)/Steve Jobs Keynote video