January 2007 – Is There Food

We have something of a tradition at my place of work. Every time Apple - or more accurately, Steve Jobs - does one of his keynotes, we watch. Or rather read - Apple don’t stream their keynotes in live Quicktime-o-vision these days - and debate. Debate inevitably turns to disagreement, and often confusion; some of my colleagues just can’t get their heads around my love of all things Apple.

This year, sadly, we had work to do while Steve did his thing, but that didn’t stop us from monitoring various live-blogs whilst we busied ourselves with our work.

Initially, there wasn’t a great deal to be excited about. After the obligatory Microsoft bashing - which this writer is getting a little tired of: do we really need to see the Zune logo in flames? - the first “announcement” of the keynote arrived.

It’s from Apple… and it connects to the TV… so we’ll call it…

Steve announced the new name for iTV - Apple TV, a name that must have taken the Apple boffins literally minutes to dream up. Why didn’t they call it this when Jobs unveiled the product some months ago? The product has virtually no surprises: it streams your iTunes music and movies from your computer to your HDTV. It also streams your iPhoto photos. And, well, that’s about it.

Apple TV has a hard drive which will store 40 gigabytes of video/music/pictures, and features an incredibly dull, Front Row-esque interface. It features a limited set of video playback options - no DivX or Xvid here, and from what I can gather MPEG2, the format of DVDs, isn’t supported either - and isn’t extensible in any way (as far as Apple have let on).

It is relatively cheap though: $300/Â£199/â‚¬300. This makes it a lot cheaper than any existing machine running Microsoft’s Media Center, or Vista. Admittedly, this isn’t an apples for apples comparison (if you’ll pardon the pun), as the Apple TV is more of a Media Center Extender device than a full blown Media Center. A more appropriate comparison would be the Xbox 360, and in this light the Apple TV comes off quite badly, assuming you’re remotely interested in gaming. Microsoft’s console matches the Apple TV product quite well for streaming media, video on demand, and IPTV functionality these days.

Beyond Apple TV, there were two other announcements. The second of these: Apple Computer Inc. is dropping the “Computer” from its name. Is this a sign of things to come? Have Apple realised that their best strength is in their MP3 players and software products? Are we likely to see a boxed version of Apple’s next operating system on store shelves for all to buy and install? Expect much speculation, as always. Or are they pinning all their hopes on the iPhone, perhaps?

iPhone… at last!

And so, finally, perhaps inevitably, perhaps disappointingly - what will the collective minds of the Internet fuss over now? - Apple went and revealed the iPhone. It’s finally here; the uber-product, the revolutionary new device that will take the telecommunications market by storm, and do for mobile phones what the iPod did for portable music players. Or will it?

iPhoneWith the iPhone, Apple have continued a trend that has made them famous: they’ve taken today’s smartphone and sprinkled it with a liberal dose of their special fairy dust. The result: possibly the most attractive mobile phone you’ll ever see. But - and it’s the same “but” that always rears its ugly head at this stage - if that’s all the iPhone is, does it achieve its revolutionary goals? Have Apple really done anything new?

It sports a very clever looking touch screen. It has virtually no buttons, no joystick, no sliders, and no stylus. You’re supposed to drive this thing with your fingers, and it’s clear that an awful lot of thought has gone into the interface. It’s incredibly thin for a smartphone, and has no slide-out keyboard. All interaction is performed on-screen. Touch screen interfaces are nothing new: my existing Windows Mobile smartphone has one, my Nintendo DS has one. But Apple’s most important tactic has been to design the whole experience around your fingers.

At times, a double tap will zoom into things - the phone’s web browser is a good example of this - whilst a scissor-like movement with two fingers will zoom out. To slide through a long list of contacts, albums, or songs, you simply slide your finger across the screen. Tap to select, drag to move. There are a large number of example videos on Apple’s site, and they’re worth checking out. The look and feel of the phone, at least in concept, is stunning.

So far, so good. Aesthetically the iPhone is everything we’ve come to expect from Apple, and possibly more. And its functionality continues to impress.

The phone will be supplied in 4 and 8 gigabyte configurations; equivalent to existing iPod Nanos. It will play video and music, and whilst 8 gigabytes isn’t a lot for either, it’s probably adequate for a device of this type. It features the Safari web browser - it’s not clear at this time whether this is cut-down, or the full blown engine from OS X, Apple’s insistence that the device runs OS X suggests the latter - and appears to do an incredible job of rendering pages, aided greatly by the zoom functionality described above. It features sensors to turn off the screen when the phone is held to your ear, and accelerometer technology to automatically adjust the orientation of the screen simply by rotating the phone. And yet, in my eyes, none of these are its most important feature.

Apple announced a partnership with Yahoo! to provide free push email to all iPhone owners. This means, with no subscription, or infrastructure commitments, the iPhone will compete with the Blackberry device, and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile devices. Exchange servers won’t be required, and Blackberry subscriptions will be unnecessary. It’s a little curious that Apple have partnered with Yahoo! for email, despite Google’s Eric Schmidt appearing on stage - that’s got to sting Google surely? Regardless, having used push email for some time on my Windows Mobile device, I can say without doubt that it has transformed the way I use email. Apple’s push email strategy could, potentially, have the impact on the mobile communications market that analysts predicted.

Sadly, their pricing model won’t. Contrary to certain predictions, a subscription is required; you’ll need to take out a two-year contract with Cingular when the phones are available later this year. Even then, Apple have priced the device at $499 and $599 for the 4 and 8 gigabyte models respectively. This makes the smaller model $100 more expensive than Cingular’s current most expensive smartphones - the feature rich Cingular 8525, and the Palm Treo 750. The question here, when it boils down to it, is: how much is sexy worth?

Also - and this is starting to become another of Apple’s trends - Europe won’t see the iPhone until the darkly ambiguous “Q4”. And we all know one year’s Q4 can easily become the following year’s Q1 if things don’t go according to plan. Clearly, Apple have some deals to do with European networks. And that means they have many more hoops to jump through before their job is done.

Gorgeous: will anyone buy it?

The iPhone is, without question, the most delicious looking piece of cellular technology ever created. Its interface, design, and even philosophy embody all the things that make Apple technology so desirable. It has the potential to change the way people use their phones. Just like the iPod did with portable music.

The question is, ultimately, will anyone buy it? Will it appeal to the same audience as the iPod, or will it become the ultimate fusion of power and style for the corporate elite? Apple’s most popular iPod product is the Nano; a product introduced after several iterations of iPod, and aimed at the low to middle end of the market. The iPhone, priced as it is, takes aim at the top end of its market. It’s likely that many buyers will wait and see, perhaps waiting for the inevitable second generation iPhone.

Me? I want one. But as a technology-obsessed, confirmed uber-geek, I get the impression I’m not the market that Apple want, in the long term.

Thus far, the Creative Labs Vista Audigy drivers have been pretty crap. I frequently get bursts of static over any audio, and only a reboot of my Media Center will fix it. But they’re betas: I can cut them some slack.

Yesterday, up popped a nice dialog box stating that my drivers would expire tomorrow, and that I could uninstall them. I didn’t see the popup until today, because it popped up behind Media Center. How handy.

Faced with a choice of a) downloading a new set of drivers, or b) running my Media Center without sound, I opted for option A.

Or, I’d like to opt for option A. Creative’s US support site is currently telling me that it “Can’t locate any sites with current domain/port credentials”, and the European support site can’t be found. It would appear that “dev1-eusite.cle.creaf.com.creative.com/support/downloads” isn’t online.

Interestingly, if I pick “Vatican City” as my location, I can work my way through a set of Italian pages and locate a new driver. Hopefully it’ll be in English.

I can’t help but imagine the Pope, tutting infallibly to himself as his Media Center pops up a message about the expiration of his sound drivers, but content in the knowledge that, it’s ok, he can download a new set of drivers from Creative. It really is all about who you know, isn’t it?

Fingers crossed: hopefully [these drivers](http://files2.europe.creative.com/m anualdn/Drivers/AVP/9988/0xD6D47C80/SBAX_PCDVTBETA_US_2_12_0001.exe) will be in English, fix my static problem, and make the Pope a very happy man.

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