iPhone: yes
His Jobsness announced the long-speculated iPhone at the MacWorld keynote this morning (Engadget had text coverage if the keynote is busy), and well, it looks awesome. Multi-touch interface similar to that of the much linked work of Jeff Han at NYU, phone, wifi, 2MP camera, movies, music, 8GB of storage, all running on OS X. Pretty much the ideal portable, even at $500-$600, on Cingular, and not appearing until June.
So, thoughts? How might this “change the game” for mobile computing, CMC, interface design, software engineering, the computer industry, and all the other things we care about? What does or could suck about this device (aside from signing up for Cingular)? Since it runs full-blown OS X and does email/www/IM and, with the help of a peripheral or two, could theoretically hook up to a keyboard/monitor/mouse setup, I could even see this thing replacing my laptop (assuming I bought a more robust desktop system for “serious” stuff).
UPDATE (1.11.07): My friend JD has summarized a few drawbacks of the iPhone, and has even done us the favor of linking to a refutation.
Apparently one blogger has already deemed the iPhone the death of the ringtone and phone-wallpaper industry. I agree with his analysis that any sort of disruptive effect the iPhone has one the ringtone industry (and in my opinion any aspect of the cell phone industry) won’t happen overnight with a $500-600 price tag.
What I was really hoping for was a SIM chip based, unlocked GSM phone that could be used across providers. Not this Cingular exclusive deal. THAT would have disrupted the US cellular industry. I’m also a bit miffed that we’re getting a “widescreen” iPod and phone, running Mac OS X, on only 4GB?? What about upgrading the amount of memory? No options, other than purchasing the $100 more 8GB model upfront?? How many movies are we supposed to store and watch on this thing? Doesn’t it seem like the OS is going to suck up at least 1GB of that memory? It’s pretty clear that Apple has the design and the UI ideas down, but what was it thinking with the lack of memory and upgrade options they have not provided??
I guess I’m a bit let down. It’s a beauty, but after I sucked myself out of Jobs’ space-time continuum warping speech I’m starting to wonder what we’re really getting out of two years with Cingular and $600 out of my pocket.
Oh who am I kidding, it’s so pretty…
UPDATE: Many reviews rolling in
David Pogue of NYTimes has some interesting remarks about actually using the phone.
Don’t forget Colbert. His response to the iPhone: “I am flacid with rage.”
Locked in more ways than one. Apparently there won’t be a SDK (or even support) to develop third-party software for this embedded OS X, which takes a lot potential out of this space. Other phones seem to have third-party app support just fine. What’s so special with the iPhone that they won’t let us unwashed masses of developers touch?
Classic Colbert. About half way through he discusses the iPhone.