Apple does it some more - or - I wish my name was Steve

I have a post that I've been meaning to get to for a couple of days now, but first I feel compelled to make a small mention of the MacWorld announcements a couple of days ago. I didn't get a chance to watch the entire presentation, but it's available over at the apple web site. It is ALWAYS entertaining - I've watched many of them.

I've been an Apple Evangelist for a VERY long time, and there hasn't been much time in the last 2 decades that I haven't either owned an Apple computer, or worked on one in my work. When I was in school, I had an Electronic Music course that was augmented by an apple computer - this was in 1988. Since that time, I have either personally owned or worked on several Apple Centris machines, Quadras, PowerPC machines, and I even owned one of their (short-lived) clones. I have an iMac at home that serves up a ton of music, which I hope to upgrade in the next year or so.

Six months ago, I spoke about the iTV announcement at the last MacWorld. It is now ready to go, and seems to be the Next Thing. Which Apple is certainly used to. And we're used to from Apple as well.

The Next Next Thing this time is the iPhone. Rumors were leaked a week or two early to build anticipation, and I listened to an interview on NPR's Marketplace program a little while ago, when they spoke to somebody at Motorola, just after they DOWNGRADED their financial expectations for the next quarter. Seems the RAZR phone, which was THE ONLY PHONE TO HAVE about a year ago, spent very little time on the top of the heap, and now it's in the discount bin. (I got mine a while ago, on a 2fer $99 deal.) This was unexpected to them, and now Motorola is having heartburn, becuase their product development cycle isn't moving as fast as the decline in product lifespan. That's a bad problem to have. Anyway, the interviewer on that show asked the dude what the rest of the industry was thinking about the impending announcement from Apple about moving into the phone market. He said it would be a campaign of Shock and Awe and that Apple would likely change all sorts of metrics in that field.

I agree - for the most part. ThatOneWife mentioned a couple of days before the announcement that the trademark for the name "iPhone" was actually owned by Cisco, not Apple. And no sooner had Steve Jobs left the stage at MacWorld, Cisco had filed a suit in San Fransisco claiming trademark infringement. Apple calls the suit "silly". I guess we'll see. This isn't Apple's first trip around the block, not even their first trip around the phone block. Same with Cisco.

But back to the good stuff. Reviewers and critics alike say the product, whatever it gets named, is unique, and will change the way phone manufacturers will do business in the future.

If you've made it this far, you deserve some pictures. Here is a whole gallery:

Knock yourself out.