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Apple Inc., the new consumer electronics version of Apple, announced their revolutionary iPhone device today. I believe there’s a lot more we should be reading into this announcement and what it means for Apple down the road.

First off, I’m not getting an iPhone. In addition to not having the cash to put down on this baby, there’s still tons to learn about this device. Will additional widgets be downloadable? Only from Apple or will we get third-party support? How will other carriers support this phone, once the Cingular exclusive is over, since apparently a ton of specific overhauling was done on the network to support Visual Voicemail? Which international carriers will be getting the phone? Since the battery is not user upgradeable (like the iPod), does this mean we will be buying a new one every two years? What if Cingular gets bitchy at it’s customers, and we then complain to Apple; who holds responsibility over the product? What type of data plan will be required to use the iPhone on EDGE? There’s many questions still left unanswered.

One thing I’d like to point out is the device in it’s current state. Look at it’s back: there’s no iPhone label, no organization approval stamps; just a big ol’ Apple logo.

To me it looks as prototype-y as the September version of the iTV. Does this mean things will be added or changed when June finally rolls around? Rumours were saying the iPhone was already ramping up production, but how can that be if it’s still a prototype? Steve said FCC approval takes two months; but that’s March, not June. Rumours also were talking about huge sways with Apple over whether to choose CDMA or GSM; although Steve said Apple’s been in an exclusive with Cingular way before the phone was even close to a reality. Does this mean Apple might add CDMA or change it before June to the rumoured dual antenna? How come Apple didn’t go MVNO, considering it would alleviate a lot of the problems I believe will occur between the two companies handling the one product?

As it currently is, iPhone is nowhere near accessible to a large market. Sure, for the price point you are getting an iPod, phone and mini-tablet. Steve kept talking about getting 1% market share, or selling 10 million. I believe that is a highly inflated number, despite reports to the contrary. This is most definitely a geeks toy, IMO. We know that in the early 2000’s, looking at iPod sales, there was several hundred thousand geeks willing to buy the initials models for $399.

Sure, Apple’s community of users has grown in recent years, but do they really think that 10 million people are going to shell out that much money for a phone, in addition to potentially having to switch contracts to Cingular. I’m going to state right here that I think Apple will sell 1 million by the end of Q1 (December ‘07); that is, if Apple doesn’t drastically change their iPod/iPhone lineup like I speculate will happen below.

Again, looking at the iPod, it was around the time the 4th gen was released that it opened up to a much larger population, all thanks to the iPod mini. What does this mean for the 2nd gen of iPhone? What are we going to look forward to? I believe that the iPhone will be updated early next year, presumably with refined controls & apps, better battery life, refined design, and 3G support. But that’s not the big news. It’s all about Holiday ‘07. Of course the iPhone will be marketed to the extreme. However, as I previously stated, the general public is used to getting their free RAZRs with new contracts; not paying hundreds of dollars for something with a contract. As revolutionary as it is, the iPhone is way too far out of Joe sixpack’s pocket.

How are they going to alleviate this? When September/October roll around, Apple will be probably refreshing their iPod lineup once again (What is there left to do?!?!). As the rumours stated earlier, there was to be two iPhones: one musicphone, and one smartphone. If this is indeed true, then we saw the smartphone today. I believe then that the musicphone will be out around the holidays. It will be 2GB or 4GB, and will remove the Internet communications device. It will be strictly a phone with iPod support. Think iPod mini: Apple quickly began hammering down all areas of the market to make an iPod for every person. They will do the same with the iPhone. There’s no point in releasing just a phone, so it must be a musicphone. This product will aid in shifting around the iPod lineup, while also opening up more of the mobile market share to Apple.

What type of pricing do we need to open up into a large general market? The iPhone 4GB is $499. The current difference between the nanos and the regular iPods is about $75. Let’s just say for arguments sakes, despite the fact that the only difference between the two iPhones would be a Wi-Fi component, that Apple was willing to sell a 4GB iPhone “music” for $399, in order the gain more market share. Now drop the flash memory to 2 gigs and we could probably get an iPhone “music” for $249. That’s the current price of an iPod nano 8GB, or iPod 30GB. Frankly, if Apple pulled this off, you would see their mobile market share inflate well beyond just the hardcore early adopters. Not only do most people not need a tablet at the moment; I believe many more would like either just an phone, or a “music” iPhone. We also can assume that as soon as the iPhone breaks in deeper, the iPod as we know it will cease to exist. Can you imagine how many nano users would switch over to a “music” iPhone, what with all the sure-to-come holiday marketing? Why would they want two devices, when they can have just one? And of course, people are going to eat up the fact that the iPod experience has been brought to a phone. Now, not only have you created an iPod-like iPhone lineup, with one product for the public and one for the business/geek types, but you’ve broken into a large portion of millions of people who didn’t buy the first, second, or third gen iPods, but the ones that first picked up a 4th gen or mini; the ones that make up the tipping point.

Just for prediction’s sake, I’ll go out on a limb here and say that not only will the iPhone be split up into a “music” iPhone (sans the web), but it will also make way for a true video iPod with wireless (sans the phone). Frankly, it’s great we finally got a real video iPod. However, the userbase that wanted such a device would never buy one with only 8GB max of storage. These types, including myself, want to carry around not only their whole music collection and all their podcasts, but also a bunch of photos and videos. This type of usage requires the mini hard disks. Thus, in another switcheroo for the sure-to-stagnate iPod lineup, this device will effectively eliminate the iPod 80GB, and perhaps even the 30GB. The iPod we know and love will ceast to exist. This new, still-branded as the iPod, device will simply be the iPhone sans the phone. It’s the iPod we’ve been waiting more than a year for: Widescreen support, wireless networking, etc. Again, this is not a drastic change of components; you’re just eliminating the GSM antenna from the device. For that fact alone, I have my doubts that this would be released in 2007. Apple wouldn’t be able to subsidize this one with a contract. However, looking back in history, you will see that people have paid up to $599 for a 60GB 4G iPod. With that in mind, it’s not too hard to imagine that Apple would be able to sell a 100GB iPod for $599, a 40GB iPod for $499, and maybe even eliminate the wireless tablet functionality to create a more reasonably priced iPod similar to the current lineup. Let’s say a 40GB iPod (sans wireless) for $399? There’s plenty of possibilities here, but there’s just some speculation.

Let’s look again at the lineup:

There’s no point in added more memory to the shuffle. Apple eliminated the 1GB nano last year, for a 1GB shuffle and 2GB nano. I have no doubt in my mind that as flash prices go down, storage will keep increasing, and there’s no point in having a 2 gig nano, when you can having your consumers buy larger ones anyways. More space is always better, especially if they really get into it and keep buying more and more music. The 40 gig iPods could just as easily be 50 gigs. But there’s a reasonable lineup, n’est-ce pas?

Looks pretty good, eh? Although, for the iPod video/wi-fi user, it’s going to be while until the flash capacities grow enough to combine the iPod and iPhone into a large enough portable media player. Until then, it’s easier just to buy a dedicated iPod with storage, and an iPhone with some space for cameraphone pictures, and maybe daily podcasts for your commute.

So that’s a pretty substantiated prediction at Apple’s iPod and iPhone lineups down the road, hopefully in time for the holidays if component costs are driven down enough, or if Apple is willing to take a loss to gain more market share.

But, there’s still one thing I’d like to touch on, and it’s something that was perhaps overlooked by Steve in his presentation today, something simply revolutiontary, far beyond just an iPhone. It’s multi-touch. We’ve seen the videos, with people moving about images and maps on a huge screen using similar touch based movements. Like Steve said, they now have three interaction devices: the mouse, the clickwheel, and multi-touch. If things go the way I presume they will, in several years time, iPod will no longer exist. It will all be out iPhone. That means the clickwheel is out. What about the mouse though? There are huge, computer industry changing implications if multi-touch is brought to Macs (and there’s no reason to assume it won’t be). Tablets, as we currently know them, are somewhat difficult devices. They essentially require specialised software designed to be touched, something Apple has pulled off with the iPhone incarnation of Mac OS X.

Do you recall the patent images? They were exactly what the iPhone UI turned out to be.

However, I bet you forgot these ones. These are real apps. This is a full blown iTunes, a full blown iPhoto. I doubt you need more evidence to see that a multi-touch based Mac is coming.

Think about that for a minute. Computers without a mouse. That’s insane! That’s more crazy then a phone without a keypad. Because with a computer, you can basically be controlling a 3D space environment. The screen is large enough and the apps are powerful enough to very amazing things, way beyond what a phone and it’s widgets can accomplish.

Well, sure, let’s say it’s naturally going to be released. Is this one of Leopard secrets? Why wasn’t iLife shown or even touched upon? Is this a perfect reason why the Macs weren’t redesigned during the Intel switch? Steve said great things are coming for the Mac in the next few months.

But how would they pull this off? Not only is this a paradigm shift for users, but also for developers. There’s no way that after a year of rewriting their code for Universal application on the Mac, that they would again throw tons of resources into creating whole new apps designed around multi-touch. Or would they? Maybe the idea of touch screen is so revolutionary that, if done, right, this would be the time to capitalize on a whole new market.

What would such a device mean to the mouse? This would be a transition of huge proportions. Would all Macs become multi-touch, or would Apple just test the waters with a MacBook-like tablet? Would it be multi-touch enabled with a keyboard and mouse, or only multi-touch? These are huge questions.

I’m sitting here, looking at my MacBook and thinking, what would this be like if I were touching the screen? If there was no tactile keyboard anymore? How would things need to look for it to function just as powerfully as it currently does, if not more? Can Leopard really be hiding that many secrets, or will Apple make a whole new multi-touch Mac OS X? Would it be a streamlined version of OS X, between Leopard and the iPhone OS? Maybe since there will be a bunch of new multi-touch enabled iLife apps, that’s why Steve didn’t mention them during the keynote.

With the advent of the iPhone, Apple Inc. really has revolutionised technology all over again. And if those patents hold, I have a hard time believing any company will be able to catch up anytime soon. There will be sweeping changes across all forms of the computer, whether handheld, lap sitting, or desktop standing. Forget about the Powerbook G5, or the Cube 2.0, Apple has just opened up a whole new can of goodies, something comparable only to the original innovation that first Macintosh presented us in 1984.

I can only hope that Apple Inc. doesn’t become the next Sony and stretch itself too thin over the coming decades.

That headline scares me so much. What is American teaching it’s children?!

I remember a few years ago thinking about this subject. How, now that long ago, everything in life was hunky dory, and I never once thought of dismissing some kid because they looked one way or another. When I was a child, opinions were based on actions. Everyone carried some type of reputation, but at least it was rational. Nowadays, thanks to time and knowledge of the way society works, prejudices have swept into my system. As much as I hate to admit it, I avoid certain people because of the way the dress, or sound, or act. I bet a ton of them could be my friends if I didn’t make the judgements, nor did they.

I think of my old friend, turned nemisis, Andy. Right there, you tried to figure out this person just based on his name. Doubt you knew he was some Indian descent. But back then, obviously I knew he had different skin colour, but did that make any difference in the least? Of course not. I didn’t even refer to him as Indian. If I were to describe him back then, I would’ve said the “short smart one”. Haha, sounds kinda Asian (<- stereotyping right there!!)

It’s almost like rewatching some cartoon and suddenly understanding all the sex jokes you completely missed as a child. Or being indoctrinated from birth into a religion you didn’t choose. Or learning from your community that because your best friend came out, he must be hated against for his “sinful” nature.

With age comes wisdom, they say. Sometimes I wish to just choose naivety over wisdom. Things are just so much more… rational. There must be some way to prevent those harmful teachings from being passed down.