Apple Launches… a Phone. Is anyone else yawning?
You guys may or may not know that I recently moved over to a MacBook Pro at work. I’m happy with it, it’s impressive. OSX is great… but I still have applications that crash and I’ve still had problems with it. I’m not so in love with it that my household is all Mac. I have one G4 and the rest of my computers are PCs running XP, along with a Buffalo Linkstation running Linux.
Am I the only guy in the world that’s really not impressed that Apple built a phone? It’s a phone people! Terms like ‘revolutionary’ are being used. Revolutionary? Really? What am I missing? Isn’t this just Phone 2.0?
Let’s go down the list of features and tell me where I’m going wrong:
* Instead of a standard keypad, the iPhone uses a patented Apple technology called “multi-touch”. It doesn’t use a stylus, has “multi-finger gestures” and claims to ignore unintended touches. Jobs compared it to two other revolutionary Apple UIs – the mouse on the Macintosh and the click wheel on the iPod.
Cool, they improved a touch pad.
* 3.5 inch touchscreen with a virtual keyboard.
Wow, bigger screen. I already have a ‘virtual keyboard’ on my phone.
* iPhone runs OS X, Apple’s standard operating system; according to Engadget’s superb coverage: “It let us create desktop class applications and networking, not the cripled stuff you find on most phones, these are real desktop applications.”
I can run Illustrator on a 3.5″ screen? Yeah! Does it come with 2Gb of RAM?
* Syncs with iTunes: “iTunes is going to sync all your media to your iPhone — but also a ton of data. Contacts, calendars, photos, notes, bookmarks, email accounts…”
Yup, got that with my phone now, too.
* Apple’s design chops is all over the iPhone: “3.5-inch screen, highest resolution screen we’ve ever shipped, 160ppi. There’s only one button, the “home” button [...] thinner than any smartphone…”
Better… faster… stronger… it’s the $6 Billion Phone.
* 2 megapixel camera built in
Yup, got that. And my phone does video and audio, too.
* Outstanding media features – scroll through your music, widescreen video, album art, built-in speaker…
Got some of that as well. 3.5″ is widescreen? For who, a flea?
* Sync your iPhone with your PC or Mac (for contacts etc)
Got it.
* Standard phone features – SMS, calendar, photos, etc. With photos there is a motion sensor that rotates photos when you turn the phone.
My screen rotates when I slide out the keyboard. Ok… you got me… motion sensors are sweet.
* Visual voicemail
Sweet. Voice to text was just what I needed when I’m checking my voicemail on the highway! I can scroll with two fingers as I run into the guardrail!
* Rich HTML emails – works with any IMAP or POP3 email service. This spells trouble for Blackberry!
Mine does that.
* The Safari browser runs on iPhone – “it’s the first fully-usable browser on a cellphone.” Jobs shows the NYT running in the iPhone – the actual website, not a puny WAP version.
Shenannigans! I’m running Opera Mobile and it’s ‘fully-usable’.
* Google Maps
With a browser and internet connection… yup, I do that as well. Of course the extra inch of screen will help me find my way easier.
* Widgets that connect to Internet seamlessly (via WiFi and EDGE)
So I can check the weather as I’m walking to work! Oh… wait a sec…
* Free “push” IMAP email from Yahoo
Super-duper.
I know that I’m being flippant about this, but I just don’t get it. Sounds like a lot of hype for a phone upgrade, doesn’t it?
Throw broadband video to video connectivity on that bad boy and this Star Trek geek will hit the ceiling. Without it, though, this is just …dare I say… a phone.
What’s next, Apple launches TV? Umm….
PS: Special apology to Bill… he was beside himself salivating at lunch today and already calculating how many years of his retirement he had to give up to buy one. I don’t mean to insult you Bill, but this is some damn good marketing hype for a phone.
