Sitting at MacWorld

[chipotle]

I’m sitting in Microsoft’s “Blogger Lounge” at the MacWorld Expo, ganking their free power and ethernet. Since I’ve claimed to be a blogger to get in here (you’re soaking in it!), I figured I might as well, you know, blog a little.

So the big story that’s going about is, of course, the iPhone. Yeah, I’m pretty impressed by it. Everyone else will talk about it at much greather length so, you know, go read what they have to say. What’s most intriguing about it to me is the claim that it’s running OS X, though—that means that Apple has an embedded version of the OS, comparable to Windows Mobile (or WinCE or whatever it’s been renamed this week).

Here’s a little Mac story that seemed to have quietly slipped through the cracks: the AirPort Extreme is now an 802.11n base station, and Apple seems to have confirmed the speculation that most of the Intel Macs already support it.

The stuff that I’m really interested isn’t being announced at all, though—I want to know if iWork is going to get a spreadsheet (not mentioned yet, if it is); I want OS X 10.5 “Leopard” now, darnit; I want to know, just for the record, if they’re going to ship a thin 12” MacBook Pro; I want to know if they’re going to be producing an Apple-branded flat-panel TV. And, yes, I think the last one is pretty likely: the announcements today don’t dissuade me from my belief that Apple really isn’t gunning for Microsoft at all, they’re gunning for Sony.

At any rate, it’s approaching time to do some floor-wandering again, I think. I have one whole hall to wander, apparently—MacWorld is a lot bigger this year than it was the last time I attended in 2003. And later today I’m going to make the attempt to get to the Apple Store for MacBreak Weekly, as previously written.

Comments

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

My suspicion is that originally the iPhone wasn't meant for Cingular's network -- it was meant as a more generic GSM phone, and picking a technology that isn't widely-deployed would be a serious stumbling block. If they'd gone with T-Mobile, UTMS wouldn't be available. EDGE is a safer "lowest common denominator." (They've been working on iPhone for two and a half years, according to Jobs -- and I've talked with someone who confirmed they had a prototype of an earlier iteration of this in 2005. Cingular only had UTMS deployed in their "major markets" at the end of 2006, and still doesn't have the higher-speed data incarnation, HSDPA, available in all of those.)

From what I've been told, a later revision will have UTMS/HSDPA available, though.

[varjohaltia.livejournal.com]

I don't think technology is the big deal. As chipotle mentioned, 3G support is virtually nonexistant in the US, which is presumably the first market for the product, and this isn't likely to change. On the flip side, I suspect Apple can realize significant savings by settling for 2.5G.

What really intrigues me is how they're going to be dealing with the providers. In the U.S. all the carriers want to sell phones through their channels, branded to them, locked to them, pointing at their content, able to download ring tones and fluff only from their approved pay for sites etc. This limits Apple's ability to control the user experience, support and limits the market as well. If they restrict themselves to one carrier, they again cut their potential market share by lots. Unless you can get a carrier to buy into your phone and advertise it though, it's pretty darn hard to sell cell phones in the states.

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

There's also an extra wrinkle in the iPhone -- as I understand it, the mail client supports "push IMAP" similar to the Blackberry, and the voicemail system's advanced features also require server-side support. So, even a completely unlocked iPhone won't work on most carriers; they need to either work out deals to support the advanced features with other carriers, or to configure the iPhone's software so those features can be turned off selectively.

[varjohaltia.livejournal.com]

True. However, neither feature is likely going to be a total deal breaker, and seem like one's that could easily be either turned off (if the option is there in the phone) or may require no action on part of the user; if the server doesn't do push-imap, you just don't get notified of new mail immediately, and if the carrier doesn't do fancy voicemail, the phone just won't display that functionality. More will undoubtedly be known when it actually comes out.