MACWORLD2008 - STEVE'S KEYNOTE BREAKDOWN (Pt. 2)

Welcome back!

Ok quick writing break over. I'm trying to avoid reading other sites and their reviews of these things so to better give you my untainted thoughts. Now, on to some new information on the iPhone and what is being updated TODAY!

So, Steve Jobs provided some information on the sales of the iPhone last year. Since it's first date on sale, the iPhone has sold over 4 million units...which is about 20,000 or so a DAY. Market breakdowns for September showed that the iPhone had captured about 19% or so of the cellphone marketplace, which is nothing to sneeze at either. Now, that's just a percentage for September. I'm sure we'd all like to see what they are as of January. I'm not saying they'll be awful, but I think now that everything has mellowed out, that we'll see that number come down to a more realistic level.

On to new stuff! First up, a Software Development kit coming at the end of February. **Watches at people explode with anticipation** I can't wait to see all the goodness this can bring. Everyone's been asking about this since the iPhone's release, and now it'll finally be out there.

The first neat thing for iPhone applications is Maps with location. Now the iPhone doesn't have GPS, so in order to work this out, the folks at Google and Skyhook Wireless got together with Apple and created a network out of the 23 million Wi-Fi hotspots in the US & Canada. Maps will utilize that network of hotspots to triangulate your location with the iPhone. You don't have to be signed onto one of those hotspots either...the programming will detect them and you'll know where you are. Sweet and nice.

Now with updates coming today, you'll also be able to send SMS messages to multiple people at once. Not a high-selling point for me (I can do that on my little LG hunk-o-verizon-junk), but still I'm betting that it's useful for most folks. Webclips looks extremely useful to me (man I need an iPhone, who wants to buy me one?) as someone who reads particular things on webpages and the like. Webclips basically allows you to add a page as an icon to your desktop so you can quickly get to it. It even remembers where you zoom and pan to. That'll be great for people like me who have to check X, Y and Z each morning before doing most anything. This update also allows you to change and customize your iPhone desktop too. Move the icons around and off the screen to your heart's content...kinda like a real desktop. ("Get thee behind me stapler!")

All of the missing content from the iPod Touch (mmm...iPod Touch) that was on the iPhone when it released is now going to be standard on all iPod Touches that are sold as of today. For previous versions you can get the same software for a $20 price. Fair enough, probably should have been free, but I can understand the need for the additional $20. So that means that iPod Touch users will get Mail, Maps, Stocks, Notes and Weather. Very nice. They didn't say that the Touches would get the newer cooler version of maps that has the wi-fi GPS bit...but I'm going to assume that's added in. (Now, to convince Apple that I'd be a hella good product reviewer for them...)

Ok...next up will be some discussion about iTunes!

-Mike Leader

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Listening to: Fleetwood Mac - Miranda
via FoxyTunes

[Apple News/Op-Ed] D5: All Things Digital - REPORT!

Apple, Inc. CEO Steve Jobs holds up an iPhone at the D: All Things Digital Conference in Carlsbad today.


Apple TV is a "DVD Player for the Internet" proclaimed Steve Jobs today at the D: All Things Digital conference. All in all, he gave a great interview (when doesn't he really?) and there was a lot said about Apple, it's products and the future. I'll try to break down a lot of what was said, and we can discuss together.

First, he spoke about the growth of the company and it's products since they got on board with Intel...5 times the typical amount of market growth here in the United States. Very very nice for Apple...I wish I made enough extra money to own stock in them! When asked if he felt that by changing the company's name to Apple, Inc. from Apple Computers, they may have given the impression that they were dropping out of the personal computers market. Steve told them no, and went on to talk briefly about the upcoming release of the Leopard OS.

So Apple is doing well...that's always good news, and hey it means they'll be around for awhile. While the world trends to more and more laptop and portable computers and less and less desktop computers, as long as Apple tries to stay at the forefront, they'll be alive and kicking long after Jobs has gone to the great orchard in the sky. :)

Walt Mossberg then jokes about the iPhone shipping in late June "Like the last day in June?" Steve followed through with the quip, "Yeah probably." Smartass CEO...great...let's not hurt the confidence in the iPhone before it releases by making jokes about the release date. Just make it happen when it's supposed to happen. That's all anyone can ask of a big company like Apple.

In one of my favorite bites here about the iPhone, Walt asks Jobs why there isn't one on the iPhone, when the folks at Palm have shown there is a desire for one. To which Jobs fired back, "No. … Once you learn to trust the keyboard, it’s a better keyboard. I’ll bet you dinner that you’ll love it." I'm really hoping he bets me dinner, because I am really sure my fat fingers won't like the keyboard on the iPhone. :P

Steve goes on to say that iPhone runs “real OS X, real Safari, real desktop email.”
Woohoo! Now this is cool...and likely stems from the fact that Apple owns their own browser and can modify it as they need to for the iPhone...and this goes for other similar programs. However Jobs did state further that not all OSX programs can run on the iPhone.

Now you remember earlier when I mentioned the part about the Apple TV? Well here's the kicker...Apple now has a done deal with the folks at YouTube to provide streaming content for the Apple TV! Come next month (June for y'all not on the Gregorian Calendar), a special download update will be available for the Apple TV owners to allow them to stream content from the folks at YouTube. Pretty cool stuff there! Walt Mossberg then noted that iTunes is one of the more ubiquitous pieces of software out right now, with it being used on quite a lot of Windows machines. Jobs, who always seems to be able to give out great quotable responses fielded that with, "That’s right. It’s like offering a glass of ice water to people in hell."

Lastly, during the Q&A session, Jobs was asked about why the iPhone is a closed platform currently. In reality, his answer makes complete sense in the way Apple has always done things...Apple wants a closed system to protect the security of the phone itself. Jobs even stated that he doesn't want the iPhone to be "one of those phones that crashes a few times a day." He asked for our patience with this, and he's likely to get it.

All in all, it was a lot of information, and a good interview...I wish I could have been there to see it live. ;)

Input from y'all? Discussion? Questions?

-Mike Leader

[Apple News] AT&T IPHONE SALES BRIEF LEAKED...

Well, the actual sales brief sheet to AT&T Employees was leaked over at The Boy Genius Report, and it puts some interesting things out there.

The document pretty much tells AT&T employees that they aren't allowed to speculate on pricing or the release date (other than sometime in June), or talk about anything outside of what is being mentioned on both AT&T's iPhone website or over at Apple's iPhone website. They are, however, reminded sternly that the iPhone is going to be available on a first-come-first-served basis. They aren't going to be allowed to take pre-orders, or call lists for customers who are interested in purchasing one.

I know there are two camps in retail management about the idea of pre-orders, with it pretty much even up as to whom is on what side. There are those who feel that pre-orders and call lists are unfair, and there are those (like me) who feel that they are a necessity. I used to manage a video store for a major chain (not that ugly blue & gold one), and upper management never seemed to like that I would take names and phone numbers, and call customers when certain rentals came in. It's not like they would have a permanent hold on the item, but because they had the foresight to ask if we could let them know when it came in, I gave them the courtesy of doing so. They had 30 minutes if I spoke with them or got an answering machine, to come pick it up. If they didn't, back into population it went. I honestly don't see why some kind of similar system couldn't be worked out by AT&T for their iPhone sales.

However, if one thinks about the point that is made in the document that there is to be no speculation over the price points ($499 & $599), there might be something interesting there. By encouraging their employees to do that, there's a high chance that it means they'll be lowering the cost of the phone based on the service contract for X amount of time. Because when they announce that on the iPhone's release date, it'll help reduce the sticker shock that some people are going through right now when they hear about it. Cell service providers do this all the time with other cellphones, why not with the iPhone? Think about it, would they want a single sale of $500...or a single sale of $395 + a 2 yr service contract? They could possibly pull down another $1900 from someone for the service contract. So yea...expect the price to go down on the phone...also expect the service contract to make your wallet cry "UNCLE!".