MacExcellence
Apple Unveils the new iPhone.
Wed, January 10, 2007
OK. The master of surprise who is Steve Jobs did not fail to surprise—even with an item that’s been predicted for over a year! I’m speaking of the iPhone. And, while the rumor mills pegged it right, I don’t think any of them could have predicted the absolutely fine product we saw unveiled yesterday at the Macworld keynote.
That said, I have one nagging wonder about the implementation. For years we have collectively marveled at the iPod and its ease-of-use factor, largely delivered to us by its intuitive and elegant scroll wheel. In order to allow for the gorgeous screen on the iPhone, the scroll wheel had to be shuttered.
I understand the decision. I understand the tradeoff. What I don’t understand is trading a navigation system that you can handle solely with your thumb to one that now requires two hands: one to hold, the other to do. The elegance of the scroll wheel was the single-handedness of it. It’s one of the things that made all of us go “Holy Sh*t!” when we first used it.
Am I wrong?
Did Apple just reinvent the (scroll)wheel unnecessarily?
As for prognostications: I thought to myself: “Self, you just got into a two year contract with Verizon, and, truth be told, you’re not entirely unhappy with the phone. You have bluetooth, and can sync your address book easily. Not perfectly, but easily.
“So, would you actually enter into a new relationship with Cingular and pony up the cancellation fee? Not likely.
“Do you think this idea is lost on the good folks at Apple?”
Not likely.
No, I rather think they’re looking to get that slice of the market that is ripe for a new contract or new buyers period. Of course, you could always use the iPhone without the phone part of it, making it a very overpriced (albeit very cool) iPod. But then I thought about the whole “2007 is going to be year of announcements and wonder” theme that Apple’s been running with, and I thought that perhaps they have a little iPod upgrade in store. It would make sense to put the power under the hood of the iPod, as the iPhone sans the phone part of it is still an extremely attractive product, one that I would be willing to pay a premium for, just give me back the spacious storage capacity of the current iPods. Yes? Sound good?
It’s my prediction, therefore, that we will see chunks of the iPhone technology and OS grafted onto the iPod, making it indeed smarter and cooler, and a significantly more ‘premium’ product than any of the competitor’s MP3 players. All leveraging the R&D that Apple’s already invested in the iPhone.
Sounds good to me. Probable, even.
I’d love to know what you think.
Comments…
I think you’re right on the money with this one. I think that the lack of tactile feedback is going to be strange once people start to actually get their hands on this.
I’m not so sure a stylus would have been a bad thing, either. Apple already owns the Newton ink technology. There’s a large market wishing that Newton would resurrect in some form. A perfect match.
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