featuring Steve Jobs and a bunch of new Apple stuff is set to go in just under an hour, and for a few weeks now we’ve (we = people who enjoy Apple watching and the company’s products) been besieged by dozens of predictions. Jason Fried’s Apple Phone: My prediction in SvN and of course John Gruber’s predictions at Daring Fireball are pretty much the best of the bunch.
I’m not a professional Apple watcher like the others, but for my part I agree most with Fried’s prediction on the phone – and the iPod announcement is a good precedent to remember. The thing to remember about Apple is that their new products, when announced, often seem anti-climactic. Revisionist history posits that the iPod was a huge announcement, but I remember when it came out people were very underwhelmed – “what, is that it, an MP3 player?”
That’s not to say I don’t wish for, as Gruber puts it, “not an iPod phone, but rather introduces a new mobile device OS.” But that doesn’t seem to be how Apple does things – it may become that eventually, but it will take time for that to become obvious to most.
Update – Nevermind! I have only read about half of the features and it’s already clearly a much bigger deal than I anticipated.
Zeke's Gallery says
Howdy!
Pay particular attention to the partnership with Cingular. I’ve read two reports about the iPhone and both of them have warned that Cingular is an extremely weak link. The only reports that haven’t mentioned how bad Cingular is are the minute-by-minute reports where there was no time for commentary.
June is a long way away and there is still time for things to blow up.