New post!
Due to pressure from some unnamed people (like Devon), I've decided to do a post. It's been awhile, and this one likely won't be too fulfilling, but here it is. I actually do plan on a doing a "State of the John" series of posts before too long. But for now... Apple is known for revolutionary products with plenty of style. They brought us the Macintosh operating system, which made desktop computing easy and not entirely for scientists and accountants. They brought us iPods which let us take lots of music on the go. Now, with much fanfare, comes the iPhone. My thoughts on the new product and all its innovative features:
in the player: not music, but watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Touchscreen interface - no keyboard or other input device. PDAs have had this forever.
- Widescreen video iPod - essentially an iPod nano with video capability. That's great, except the fact that video takes up lots of room and the iPhone has a tenth of the capacity of a hard-drive-based iPod.
- Web browsing from your phone - I'll give them credit on this one, it will be sweet, but still, nothing incredibly innovative. It was just a matter of time until processing power and screen resolution were able to handle it.
- Phone interface - lots of cool little features, but nothing entirely new.
- High-tech stuff - I like some of this stuff, like the accelerometers that sense the orientation of the phone and switch the screen direction to suit (could get confused if you hold it flat), the many connectivity options, ultra-small form factor (no memory card slots and compromised battery life).
in the player: not music, but watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
jb blessed the web with this post at 8:58 PM
4 Comments:
the point is not that any of the features individually are innovative (except for multi-touch, which is incredibly innovative), but that they put it all together in a sexy package that will actually work and make people happy to use.
mac was nothing innovative, neither was ipod. it just was that apple used the right marketing and refined the product just enough to make it more usable and more pleasant to use than anything else.
Eliot makes a good point, but with the exception of the 100% touchscreen interface, smart phones have had most of the same features. I will admit that it certainly is an attractive package, though with my $600 I would probably buy an 8GB iPod nano, an AppleTV, and then have $50 left over to upgrade my cell phone to something with a little web functionality (at my next upgrade time, here in August). Or go buy a mac mini.
Wow! A new post. I think that's even more interesting than the iPhone. Of course, we don't even own an iPod, so clearly I have little input on this topic.
as I am years behind technologically, I can't really comment. I don't have a PDA or Ipod. I am content with my cheap camera phone from T-mobile. :)
Brammer, what did you think of Eternal Sunshine? I thought it was good stuff. Also, are you going to Marshall's wedding? I was hoping to, but it's on the same weekend as two other conflicts in my schedule.
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