On 1/9/07, T Shey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > To me, it just shows how arrogant Apple has become. > > For over a decade now, thousands of people in the mobile business have > been putting out hundreds of variations on the mobile phone that were > dependable for being mediocre, baffling to use, and ultimately > unsatisfying for the customer.
I think to some degree your right, but two things.... three things. 1) this IS so called convergence... it is one step forward two steps back. The thing is this sort of intensive hardware evolution takes time. There are all sorts of false starts. It started out with the PDA... but it turns out PDA wasn't THE killer app... it's important but it's not the primary thing... it's now been worked in as an important component, but none the less a secondary component of voice communications... i.e. phones. But the use scenarios for the PDA are now very polished. The thing is we DON'T know where this is going... I mean... I think we have a pretty good idea it's all about various forms of interpersonal communicaitons including... email, IM, SMS, voice... and maybe what's next is maybe multi-media communications... photo-sharing, video sharing, audio and video podcasting... but nothing is certain. It takes a long time, a lot of back and forth iterations to polish these new features and figure out how important they really are and how they should work. And while we're used to things moving in web time... this is NOT web based innovation... it's hardware. Hardware innovation moves MUCh more slowly. With a website if you don't like what's there today you can learn from it and kick out an improved version tomorrow. However, with hardware the product cycle is like 9 months. It takes that long to take something you've learned from your past products and your customers... and turn it around into a new product. Often times these pocket space or handheld devices need to diverge in order to move forward. For example building a standalone music player, the ipod... allowed apple to forget everything else and focus on just the music experience... and I think we can pretty much say they made a breakthrough. BTW... it's also the same story with the blackberry.... they split out the email functionality and focused in on it, and solved the problem... and now apple is integrating ALL these things back together in the iphone.... mp3/media player + voice communications + plus SMS and email communications + some other crazy sh*t. 2) It may be arrogant of steve jobs... but then this is EXACTLY the same story as the Mac in 1984, and in the iPod. This is precisely what apple's core competency is... taking computing and making it supremely useable for everday people... of figuring out what IS important and how it should work. And, btw... while I don't agree with everything about apple (such as I hate itunes lack of permalinks to audio and video podcasters) I do think that they have really NAILED it with the iphone. 3) There is also ONE other thing I think is KEY to mobile computing. That key is WEB... web as a whole is the new platform... full blown web access.... once true end to end web comes to the mobile platform innovation will EXPLODE... making all these innovations like mobile email, SMS, picture phones... and anything else... look paltry by comparison. The reason why is simple... because once the unencumbered, network neutral web is available to these device ANYONE will be able to offer services to these devices and innovate... we're talking geo-location and gps services... and... hell... I can't even BEGIN to guess at what will happen. That said there are still three major sticking points to the mobile web. 1) the network carriers themselves... they're notoriously backward... they all want to be the gatekeepers, they all thing they can make more profits by controlling everything on their network. Personally I think the exact opposite is true. What's interesting is with the proliferation of wifi networks and cheap wifi integration on these devices it may not matter what these cellular carriers think, they'll no longer have a monopoly on the mobile web. this is to say nothing of wimax... which has a horizon of approximately 2-5 years here in the u.s. 2) the mobile web as happens in the web browser... the web browser as a platform... the iPhone supports Safari... and hence javascript... this is a HUGE step forward. It is a huge step toward unencumberd web access... it means no more dummy web... wap, mmode and other tech wasn't cutting it. The day is coming when you'll have access to ANYTHING on the mobile web that you had access to on the web we access from our desktop computers everyday. 3) mobile computing as a platform... key services will need access to more than just the web browser... they will need access to the mobile platform... in this case developers will need acces to the mac OS on apple's iPhone. Apple hasn't revealed wether they'll alow this access, and personally, I think Cingular would be dead set against it... BUT someone is going to do it. Someone is going to hack OSX on the iphone if apple doesn't open it... and someone is going to offer a linux install for the iphone. Sooner or later the platform will open. It's all just a matter of time... and that is the big question. Is it going to happen in the next two years... of five years... or is it going to take ten? More below. > For every new innovation we got in a mobile phone, we usually got two > steps back. Blackberry finally makes a decent email experience, then > they (or the carriers who approve their designs) refuse to support > IMAP. We finally get phones that can play music, and they lock us > down with restrictions on what music and where we can download it. > We finally get a nice thin phone in the RAZR, and it still has the > same OS that was on your Motorola three years before, that can't have > two phone numbers for one person. We finally get WiFi, but they > decide to leave out a camera or music player (some of you N Series > phones, we're talking about you). And so on, so we end up buying a > phone, rapidly getting sick of what it can't do, and counting the days > til we can get a new one, which for most people actually means years. > > But then Apple comes in and thinks they can wipe the slate clean and > make a phone that looks beautiful, is also an iPod and camera and a > fully functional internet-ready computer, and has a brand new user > interface that emphasizes how people really want to use a phone. And > they don't even have the courtesy to do it with RIM or Nokia or > Motorola or some other company that really knows how to make > unsatisfying phones and keep us buying them with tiny little > improvements from year to year to year. They do the whole thing in > secret with their in-house teams, the same people who make MacBooks > and iPods. > > Seriously, who do the people at Apple think they are? And what are > they trying to do, make us never want to buy another kind of phone > again? I'm warry of Steve Jobs reality distortion field... but who he things he is... is the guy behind the mac that turned computers into a something that could be used by the masses... and then more recently... there was the brilliance of pixar... and the ipod. Steve is on a roll... and personally, I do think the iphone may just really revolutionize mobile computing and communications. Mobile computing is ALL about communications... and the missing piece to the puzzle I think... between email, im, chat on one side... and watching TV shows or movies on the other extreme end... is social media... or what I like to call INTER-personal communications. These are not literal, and accute communications they are abstract, ambient and yet extremely powerful communications. They are quite simply things like photo-sharing, video sharing and video blogging, and audio podcasting. They are still extremely personal media... having more in common do to their "long tail" nature with email, IM, SMS and voice communications... then TV and movies... which are on the other end of the spectrum... increasingly non-personal. And in the middle right between these inter-personal communications like photo and video sharing and audio/video podcasting and TV and movies... well that is music, music videos 1) voice 2) SMS/IM 3) email 4) photosharing, videosharing, video and audio podcasting 5) music, music videos 6) the internet --> an exploding amount of opportunities... which will make all so far pale in comparison 7) TV and movies Notice as you go down the list it communications get more and more abstract, more media rich... and move from the extremely personal 1:1 communications toward more open and increasingly less personal and individual media untill they're really not really communications. Disclaimer: it's late, and I know I'm typing quick... so I'm forgetting a few pieces of the puzzle, but that's how I see it. -Mike mefeedia.com mmeiser.com/blog intermediated.com evilvlog.com > > On 1/9/07, Mike Meiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Ha, I'm here. > > > > I just have so much to say I don't even know where to begin. > > > > Mostly I'm excited because this is a HUGE leap forward for not just > > the mobile web... the extension of network neutrality principles to > > the mobile web. > > > > But also because it illustrates apple REALLY, REALLY get's mobile > computing. > > > > Specifically mobile computing is ALL about communications. > > > > This device is heavily hevily focused on personal / inter-personal > > communications. > > > > voice, IM, SMS, picture sharing and so much more > > > > it also supports audio and video podcasting but apple hasn't yet cut > > the sync cable. > > > > This is to say... it makes no sense... that you should be walking > > around or sitting at your desk at work with this marelous piece of > > tech with wifi and GSM in your pocket or sitting on your desktop with > > the same old podcasts and videos from when you left home in the > > morning. Why should it be teathered to one desktop computer with a > > sync cable. > > > > Why should such a marvelous piece of tech NOT aggregate your latest > > audio or video podcasts directly from the web so that anytime you pick > > it up it has "new stuff". > > > > And for that matter why when you buy anything from the itunes store > > why should it not be automatically delivered to the device. > > > > Why should you have to carry it home each night to sync it? And what > > if you go out of town for a few days... why should you not have access > > to your latest podcasts, videos and media wherever you are? > > > > These are the same questions people have asked of email and I expect > > they will come to the same conclusions... building both webservices > > for audio and video podcast management... and building support onto > > hardware devices much like the blackberry. > > > > In fact, I dare say, that much like mobile email. Mobile podcast > > aggregation will one day be a killer app on the mobile computing > > platform. > > > > At this point... do to the questions the new iPhone asks... though the > > answers have not yet been given.... this vision that media should flow > > directly from the web to your device is pretty much inevitable. It is > > inevitable because it is where the questions lead, and have been > > leading since Microsoft put wifi in the Zune, though they did nothing > > with it. Indeed, the editors of the Chicago suntimes, the Wall Street > > Journal, and the NYTimes even asked such questions. Why should I have > > to sync the such a device when it has wifi built in? The answer is > > you shouldn't. The answer is... there's no reason why you such a > > device should ever be teathered to a single desktop computer again. > > > > That said, direct to device aggregation of podcasts and purchases > > probably wasn't an extremely high priority with apple given the > > tremendous amount of features in this new iPhone device... but I > > suspect that one way or another aggregation will be coming to this > > device soon. Especially since it appears to be running some basic > > version of Mac OSX. I would hope in fact that Fireant or Democracy > > will be ported to it soon. I think i'll be a SUPERB platform for > > Democracy in particular. The Democracy interface was made to run on > > the iPhone over wifi. > > > > One last thing... people keep bitching about cellular data and > > aggregation. They keep saying... cellular networks aren't fast > > enough... even if they were they'd never allow it... Well screw the > > cellular networks... if they're not fast enough or too closed who > > cares. Podcasting and videoblogging does NOT require always on > > connectivity... all it requires is that when you go to pick up your > > iphone there's something new. > > > > One final thing. One reason I'm so obsessed with bringing audio and > > video podcasting to the mobile web is because moving them beyond the > > desktop will not only enhance the power and ubiquity of open access > > media... think digital divide... think one laptop per child.... think > > limited portable computing droping in price and becoming ubiquitous > > all aroudn the world... but also they will enhance video > > podcasting, video sharing, and audio podcasting's value as means of > > inter-personal communications in much the same way the blackberry and > > so called "mobile email" enhances the communications value of email. > > > > Ubiquity, ease of use, and in the future a constant drop in the price > > of hardware and connectivity are the key. > > > > Oh, and speaking of connectivity, apple talked about a new focus on > > wimax with some partnership. If wimax ever pans out we'll be talking > > about a ubiquitous broadband network that's easier and cheaper to > > install and maintain than todays cellular networks... which is pretty > > interestng because cellular networks have already penetrated some of > > the farthest corners of the planet. > > > > It all ads up to a completely new and very distruptive communications > paradigm. > > > > Peace, > > > > -Mike > > mmeiser.com/blog > > mefeedia.com > > intermediated.com > > evilvlog.com > > > > On 1/9/07, Nathan Freitas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > sull wrote: > > > > > > > > do you think osx is open to users or confined to approved > applications? > > > > > > > I feel like they will push widgets as the primary application model for > > > developers. Just my guy instinct based on issues around deployment, > > > updating, and a networked application model. > > > > > > +n > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > > > > -- > --------------------------------------- > Tim Shey > > http://nextnewnetworks.com/ > http://shey.net/ > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > >
