Camperton

FlashGordon

Anyways, I digress...

Jobs has not peaked. Apple has not peaked. They have set the stage for the future of their company and they are doing it without overwhelming the normal, everyday consumer.

Sure, it would be great to have all these super awesome features in the iPhone. (SDK, Flash, direct access to make widgets) But haven't you ever heard "less is more"? Maybe it is wiser to keep the iPhone limited and simple for the time being so that it is just REALLY good at certain things like making phone calls and listening to and browsing music and pictures before they decide to work on adding finiky technology and 3rd party stuff later on that would cause issues or convolute the slick UI they have going right now.

Believe it or not folks, most people that buy Apple stuff nowadays are not geek, power users like you find in Gizmodo. Apple needs to be able to innovate and keep themselves on the bleeding edge of the market without moving so far ahead that they end up losing the interest of the less tech saavy consumers. Because there lots of them and those are the people that bring Steve Jobs money. Not the incredibly small amount of super geek users who bitch about the iPhone in forums and blogs.

It sucks. I know. But that's business. You can't tailor something as universal as a phone to a niche market of users just so that we don't have to hear them bitch online about it. You have to make something that is going to be so simple your mother or grandmother can use without having to read a 100 page manual about the damn thing.

I think that is where the iPhone will succeed. I think the UI makes so much sense and is so intuitive that even a mom or a little kid could figure it out. And I believe the UI alone is worth the money in my eyes. Sure the loss of tactile feedback will have a learning curve but it's not a hard learning curve at all. And for everyone to be bitching bitching about the lack of tactile feedback...my question to you is..."when the hell did you use the iphone and it's technology to have a right to have an opinion on it?" No one here can talk about their use of the phone on a daily basis and whether or not the touch screen was a good idea....that is something we all have to wait on to see!

metalhaze

Yeah. Heard he's a real buster. But who wouldn't especially with a bunch of slacking, "I wanna surf all day" made in californians.

Hey, he's over 40. You can't trust him, kids.

I'm sure in battle, every good general was hated. Not because he won, but because he was right.

Spare_Change

P3nnst8r

I remember reading about his "reality distortion field" in "The Journey is the Reward) (sheesh--was it 15 years ago!) and thinking that I would really hate working for him. He really did sound like an ass.

But I have to admit that his products are iconic. At a time when my computer was a home-brew Z80 system running CP/M he came out with the Mac. The first time I used a mouse was a transforming experience. I thought "This is how computers are supposed to be!"

I suspect part of his cachet is his unity of vision. He just seems to know what consumers want before the consumers even know it. Then he just hammers away at his engineers until they produce the vision he has in mind. He doesn't accept arguments like "We can't make it that small.", "We can't fit that much memory in it.", "The battery won't last.", "It will cost too much." and all the other arguments I hear every day for not making great products that people love to use instead of clunky, arcane, hard-to-use, breakable products that are hard to use.

Maybe he's an ass... I don't know... but he sure makes great stuff that I enjoy using, and he's been doing it consistently for at least 25 years. I admire him and thank him for that.

(Insert violin music here.)

craighyatt

People in general are just so stupid.

jawzxy

I was hoping that opening the box of my iPhone would result in another such memory but I fear the lack of access to the SDK (even though I *think* I understand the rationale behind this at the moment) will not make that possible. Still, it's gonna be a blast.

jmdecombe

JordyT

jmdecombe

Not long ago I gave serious thought to what I need in a phone before it really lived up to it's potential and for me this is as close as anyone's come. I've spent thousands over the years on phones that could do most of what the iPhone does yet those phones were so awfully slow and clunky I gave up on model after model. I'll nod to the missing 3G snafu but in almost every other regard this is exactly what I've been waiting for:

-full-fledged browsing bottlenecked only by the connection and not the hardware
-landscape or portrait screen with motion sensitive swapping
-pic, music and video playback with great resolution
-Ultra-fast interface with (assumed) high quality development
-bundled applications I would actually use
-battery life to die for
-rich, unique and (assumed) easily mastered input method

To my mind the only faults are no 3G, no GPS, and (assumed) a mediocre camera. I can live with those...for now.

This is an amazing step in the right direction toward a future euphoria-device....a step that might be worth investing in; early reports will tell. If the specs and marketing are true I'll buy one. Kudos to Apple for trailblazing and this will be nice with iTunes integration...but honestly this device could have been made by anyone else and I'd be just as stoked about it.

virtualmatt

trekkie

Ah... sweet release.

Slappy McSlapp

Collins1990

It was a rhetorical question.

-p-

psxndc

Brian Lam

voicegy

consumernine

Not to mention Quicktime, what a waste of code.

bnosach

DaveJ

Hm maybe Assholes shouldn't Breed? Ooops too late.

amppcguru

the most common descriptor applied to him, by friends and foes and even Jobs himself, is "asshole."

Beethoven? Asshole. A perfectionist with a high opinion of himself who didn't play well with others, and eventually drove his nephew Karl to a suicide attempt.

Picasso? Asshole. Had sex with his best friend's girlfriend. Hated his wife but refused to divorce her because that would mean losing half his property, so he shacked up with a 17-year-old girl instead. The girl expected Picasso to marry her one day, and when he never did, she hung herself.

Einstein? Asshole. Had an illegitimate child he refused to acknowledge or care for. Divorced his wife, then married his cousin, but really had the hots for his cousin's DAUGHTER.

You know that famous commercial that starts, "Here's to the crazy ones?" You might as well say, "Here's to the ASSHOLES."

Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.

Because they change things. They push the human race forward.

bunny_rabid

People have generally "bought" what's given to them by their cell providers.

The iPhone is the first product in the mobile space that pretty much everyone knows about. No other product in telecommunications history has received this amount of press nor earned this amount of mind-share and lust. Not even by a factor of 1000 let alone 100.

If Apple came out with this product at $200 they would sink more than one corporation's mobile division. At $500 they will sell it healthily into the millions. Apple don't need to worry. Steve doesn't need to worry. Motorola needs to worry. Nokia needs to worry. Microsoft needs to worry.

Despite the Giz having proclaimed the product as the Jesus Phone, most stories in the media are about the uphill battle. And betting on past track record. This isn't a puzzle. It's not a gamble. This is something any middle-school kid already knows the answer to. Apple is going to redefine the mobile handset market. Over night. Take that to the bank. Now. Ask them to deposit it for you on the 29th.

hybrid8

aratuk

nevyn

i think he is doing an excellent job branching out.

drewheyman

"When Elephants walk, dogs bark."

The future tastes apple. Get used to it.

eldosebabu

Ishimaru

wetworker

the fundamental difference here is... there are millions of people out there that will buy this phone and love it, and happily use it everyday, because it is designed and built by a company that actually tries to make great products.

and like the ipod, dozens of other companies are going to come late to the party, try to copy what apple has done, and fail.

tucker

wetworker

SchruteBuck

Likewise, the keyboard is best compared to the 9key or t9 input, not a dedicated qwerty.

Brian Lam

This is the mac phone vs the windows-esque phones, just like the mac computer vs the windows based computers. It's the same story in a different format. Even the pricing is about right. lol

However, I must admit. I say this all from a cheap HP, thought I long for a nice macbook. And it will be mine, oh yes. Same as my SLVR will be replaced by an iPhone, just not the first batch. If the iPod is any indication of things to come, I CAN WAIT! :)

NOIRtist

So, has Jobs peaked? Has Apple peaked? Peaked in what terms? Market share? Money made? Actual useful innovation (can you say "voice-activated dialing)?

Stay iTuned.

crescentdave

It is just one human being's opinion who just happens to be a journalist for a popular magazine.

Karttikeya

here's the link.

tucker

BigSwirv

This is the nature of the technologies.

xint

Everyone can't wait for the IPHONE. When I ask them why they say

DUDE ITS THE IPHONE.

I continue to ask them what can it do that your phone cant...

the reply:

DUDE ITS THE IPHONE!

Check out my post on it at asktheadmin.com here:

[asktheadmin.blogspot.com]

AskTheAdmin

adrunkenmonkey

Kaboom. lol.

quikboy

Pope John Peeps II

Brian Lam

dMek

[nymag.com]

just take the 's' off the link's address.

ludwigk

Hayta grapes.

They's sour.

iomatic

Harry_Greek

the real link [nymag.com]

god, you made me use an html tag! who knows if I did it right...

ludwigk

Escamotage