It’s innovative because we say it is. Honest.
1998, Digital Networks North America releases the Rio, a portable MP3 player that can compete with products like the Sony Walkman. 2001, Apple Computer releases the iPod, a revolutionary personal electronics gizmo that lets you listen to your music library on the go. In 2006, Microsoft releases the Zune and is labeled a copycat.
November, 2003: Palm introduces a phone / music player / internet gadget Treo. January, 2007: Apple unveils the revolutionary phone / music player / internet gadget iPhone. Looks like the Apple learning curve has grown from 3 years to 4.
I’m reasonably sure that it’ll be user-friendly and the touch-screen interface has some gee-whiz factor to it, but for a similar price (about $600), I could get a blu-ray high-def DVD player that runs cutting-edge videogames and has a variety of other techie uses (they call it a PS3). Color me unimpressed. Also, I wonder if the new iPhone’s face plate scratches as easily as the free iPod I got a year ago?
Probably. But it’s still so freaking cool!
I’m not the target market for this new widget (I’ve never spent $100 on a cellphone, much less $600), but it seems to me that if Apple doesn’t have a seriously scratch-resistant faceplate on these things, they’re in for a lot of morning-after negative reviews. I realize that this is speculation, but it’s speculation informed by years of iPods bearing the scars of… being placed in a cotton pocket and handled by bare hands. With the iPod, this problem is mitigated by the availability of after-market hard-covers. For the iPhone, the touch-screen interface would make such prophylactic measures pointless, simply presenting you with the choice of either protecting your phone or actually using it.
Oh yeah, and that high-speed Internet access is EDGE, so we’re talking ~200kbps which, as DSLReports quips, is only broadband in the eyes of the FCC.
Well, I am still going to buy one because, as you would say, a Mac weenie. It is pretty damn cool though! I will have to bring it over to you and you can see then about the screen, here goes…
P.T. Barnum would be proud.
About your position on the iPhone name, you should read this: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=236
[Comment ID #34594 Will Be Quoted Here]
I don’t have a position on the iPhone name. Cisco does, Apple does, and I’ve no doubt that some judge somewhere will too in due time. The link you provided is interesting regarding the registered status of a trademark. Neither of us are trademark experts, but as I understand things, all it takes is actually doing business under a mark to have a claim to it. Registering a trademark strengthens that claim, but the fact that Cisco beat Apple to the market at any time (whether it was six years ago or ten months ago) gives Cisco a case here.
Considering the vigor with with Apple sends its hounds after anybody selling a product or service with the word “pod” in it, or any contraction of “i” with anything, I find this Cisco / Apple situation to be ironic and amusing. That’s about it.
I certainly have a tentative position on the gadget itself, which is that it looks overpriced, especially considering how scratch-prone their other overpriced pocket-borne gadget, the iPod, is. Does anybody really want to surf the web at 320 x 480 screen resolution? At 3.5 inches? I didn’t see anything mentioned in the specs about it coming with a magnifying glass.
Prophylactics? Heavy duty cellophane? I’m sure it can be managed anyway. All because of plastic!
As for the device, it is another sad apple product I will not buy. It has been done, is a nice new way of looking at it, but will be done again too. Glad they finally changed their corp name though.
Oh, and if the pinch action works right, it is sorta a magnifying glass. heh…