macnews.net.tc
2006-11-16
So I go away for a couple of days...
... and sure enough, Apple releases the anticipated new MacBooks just on the first day I'm cut off the 'net. ;) Well: We pretty much knew what was coming, anyway (even though some rumour voices still said they didn't expect Core 2 Duo MacBooks before the end of the year).
But more interesting to me: Rumour has it that the iPhone will not only finally come true early next year, but that it'll try to do for mobile phones what the iPod did for MP3-players back then. Remember: When the iPod was unveiled, there already were some players around. Some used flash memory and held about an album in their 64 MB memory. The others were big, bulky harddrive players - and they all were awkward to handle. Which mattered less when you only had about 10 songs to play, but certainly was no good when trying to load 6 GB of music onto a player with a USB 1.1 connection (takes long, long hours...) - and navigating the songs was a hassle to say the least. Then came iPod and iTunes, and suddenly digital-music-files-on-the-go made sense.
The situation with mobile phones is similar today in some aspects. There already are mobile phones that can do nice tricks. They play music from their SD-cards or MemorySticks, they have nice digital cameras (often, a 2 or 3 MP camera is enough for a short trip to a nice place), but they somehow don't integrate well, and handling the music and files on the camera is a hassle.
Apple has been said to have ordered 12 million iPhones for next year. And that they'll sell them without contract, i.e. they'll be just another part of the iPod line. It'll be the iPod you truly want, I'd say, since it also replaces your mobile phone. If it also surpasses some aspects of the frankensteinian PDA/Smartphones, Apple could have a good chance here. While they probably won't take the mobile phone market in storm, they just might have the right angle to actually make a good splash there. I'll certainly be interested to test one and decide whether it's time to sell my mobile phone(s) and 80 GB iPod. - posted by Patrick Armbruster @ 10:51 [article link] 2 comments
But more interesting to me: Rumour has it that the iPhone will not only finally come true early next year, but that it'll try to do for mobile phones what the iPod did for MP3-players back then. Remember: When the iPod was unveiled, there already were some players around. Some used flash memory and held about an album in their 64 MB memory. The others were big, bulky harddrive players - and they all were awkward to handle. Which mattered less when you only had about 10 songs to play, but certainly was no good when trying to load 6 GB of music onto a player with a USB 1.1 connection (takes long, long hours...) - and navigating the songs was a hassle to say the least. Then came iPod and iTunes, and suddenly digital-music-files-on-the-go made sense.
The situation with mobile phones is similar today in some aspects. There already are mobile phones that can do nice tricks. They play music from their SD-cards or MemorySticks, they have nice digital cameras (often, a 2 or 3 MP camera is enough for a short trip to a nice place), but they somehow don't integrate well, and handling the music and files on the camera is a hassle.
Apple has been said to have ordered 12 million iPhones for next year. And that they'll sell them without contract, i.e. they'll be just another part of the iPod line. It'll be the iPod you truly want, I'd say, since it also replaces your mobile phone. If it also surpasses some aspects of the frankensteinian PDA/Smartphones, Apple could have a good chance here. While they probably won't take the mobile phone market in storm, they just might have the right angle to actually make a good splash there. I'll certainly be interested to test one and decide whether it's time to sell my mobile phone(s) and 80 GB iPod. - posted by Patrick Armbruster @ 10:51 [article link] 2 comments
