Over this weekend I watched the Macworld main presentation by Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple. Being an early adopter I've used a mac for a few years now and have been watching with much interest how the company is slowly repositioning itself as a lifestyle technology company rather than just a supplier of nifty computers and mp3 players. Realising some years back that the biggest single consumer electronics product was a mobile phone, apple is now entering this market with some style I hasten to add.
In order to bypass potential media leaks that might happen during the FCC approval process, apple chose to launch iPhone a good six months before it's available to the consumer and my goodness devoting over 70% of the main presentation time to this product is an indication of what apple expect to happen in it's takeup once the product is launced.
The product which has been designed over the last three years inconjunction with Cingular, Google and Yahoo, was developed from scratch, rather than trying just to improve on current was of doing things, there's no stylus, it can play movies (as there is a video ipod built in), it can make conference calls and completely sync with your bigger mac once you bring it in wifi range.
So what's missing you might say - obvious things are a personal GPS, so you can get directions while you walk or use the device as a satnav in your car. Memory is also an issue, I've taken to downloading movies I can watch when I travel on a 60gb video ipod and boy they eat storage space. I've got about 18gb of space left. Then there is the issue of device battery life. The iPhone fairs better than most boasting 5hours of phone use or video playing, which they hope is that max of what people might want to use in a day. The other need is 3G, the current device is GSM, which outside a wifi zone will be quite slow for internet usage.
So what does the future hold ? well if this product is adopted as fast and loud as the cheers from the audience rich kids will get the device the day it hits the shops and the other 93% of us will adopt the $499 / 2 year phone contract / 4gb version in about 2 years time.
There is of course a disparity issue, one part of the world has taken a giant leap in innovation, design and technology, while the majority of the world struggles to find food, shelter, warmth and security on wages of less than $2 per day. A brand new iPhone for someone in the poorest country on earth was represent over a years salary.
That bit of perspective at the end is what keeps me coming back.
Posted by: Misi | Tuesday, January 23, 2007 at 06:23 PM