The most amazing Apple prediction I have ever seen

The year was 2002 and on the Mac Daily News site, this post appeared

While the Handspring Treo’s top model offers a color screen, cell phone, Palm OS PDA and more, it also lacks the ability to upgrade the OS, an expansion slot, and most noticeably, Bluetooth. As I look at my current phone and my current Palm PDA, I realize I am in serious need of what I call, “The Device.” I really thought I wanted a Treo with Bluetooth, OS upgradeability, and an expansion slot, but since this didn’t exist, I was left dreaming of the Sony Ericsson P800 or even the Palm Tungsten W, if they ever become available.

But, then I got to thinking about the recent iChat rumors. iChat is rumored to be getting audio and video capabilities in addition to its current text messaging. Basically, you’d be able to chat with sound and pictures; iChat would become, quite simply, a videophone. It is not much of a technological leap to imagine a device running this new iChat, that contains at least a 20GB hard drive, a color screen and uses both Inkwell and a thumb-keyboard. This device, from Apple, capable of utilizing wireless GSM/GPRS networks, with SMS ability, could also run iCal, Address Book, iSync, and incorporate Rendezvous technology. I mean, Apple is obviously laying the foundation for something special with iSync and Rendezvous, and I don’t think it is just for the standard-issue “Digital Hub” Macintosh desktops and portables.

This device, able to be made today with current technology, would easily be “The Device.” Running Mac OS X or a mobile variant, it would allow the user to communicate via text, audio, and video. It would snap digital photos and organize them, do email, and browse the web. It would sync automatically with your desktop or portable Mac. It would run Sherlock for web services. With its large hard drive inside, and its included FireWire port, it would absorb the iPod by playing AAC / MP3 audio and interface with iTunes, but it would also play feature-length MPEG-4 movies, too, in full color. It would have the FM tuner that iPod lacks, too. It would incorporate Inkwell for jotting down notes, interfacing with the device or sketching ideas. It would have built-in Bluetooth, which would allow for, among other things, short-range personal broadcasts; your own radio/TV station and any number of websites in your pocket. McDonald’s Drive Thru’s would accept payments via Bluetooth from “The Device.” And, of course, it would have the basics like any PDA; your date book, to do list, calculator, etc. I figure a form factor about the size or a Newton or a bit smaller would do the trick.

This would be “The Device.” iDevice?? And only Apple, in concert with a partner like Verizon, Cingular, or Sprint, has everything in place to make “The Device” a reality today. I wonder if they are close, yet, or still far away from fruition? I really hope they are building it. Everything seems to point to it or am I just wishing too hard? I’ll tell you one thing, if Apple can produce it, they’ll really change everything this time, and they’ll never be able to make enough. Nearly everyone would have an Apple device in their pocket that worked best (or only) with a Macintosh computer. Would you buy one for, say, $799? I would.

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The Apple iPhone is here at last

To witness the iPhone launch from behind the curtain (or under the towel) is to see the controlling hand of Steve Jobs, for whom this is an almost mystically significant year. He’s 50 years old. It’s been 30 years since he founded Apple (with Stephen Wozniak), and 10 since he returned there after having been fired. In that decade Apple’s stock has gone up 1,000%. Neither age nor success (nor cancer surgery in 2004) have significantly mellowed him, though some of the silver in his beard is creeping into his hair. All technologists believe their products are better than other people’s, or at least they say they do, but Jobs believes it a little more than most. In the hours we spent talking about the iPhone, Jobs trash-talked the Treo, the BlackJack, the Sony PSP and the Sony Mylo (“just garbage compared to this”), Windows Vista (“It’s just a copy of an old version of Mac OSX”) and of course Microsoft’s would-be iPod killer, Zune.

Jobs’s zealousness about product development— and enforcing his personal vision—remains as relentless as ever. He keeps Apple’s management structure unusually flat for a 20,000-person company, so he can see what’s happening at ground level. There is just one committee in the whole of Apple, to establish prices. I can’t think of a comparable company that does no—zero—market research with its customers. Ironically, Jobs’s personal style could not be more at odds with the brand he has created. If the motto for Apple’s consumers is “think different,” the motto for Apple employees is “think like Steve.”

Now that the precedent has been set, it’ll be interesting to see if other cell phone makers start demanding Apple-style treatment from wireless carriers. It’ll also be worth watching to see how successful they’ll be in knocking off the iPhone’s all-screen form factor, which will be very difficult without Apple’s touchscreen technology. Apple has filed for around 200 patents associated with the iPhone, building an imposing legal wall. Considering the size of the market, the stakes are high. The phone market is, of course, divided into armed camps by carrier, and so far the iPhone is exclusive with Cingular. Apple has sold 100 million iPods worldwide, but Cingular has only 58 million customers. Apple expects to launch the iPhone abroad in the fourth quarter of this year. It’s not quite right to call the iPhone revolutionary. It won’t create a new market, or change the entertainment industry, the way the iPod did. When you get right down to it, the device doesn’t even have that many new features—it’s not like Jobs invented voicemail, or text messaging, or conference calling, or mobile Web browsing. He just noticed that they were broken, and he fixed them.

But that’s important. When our tools don’t work, we tend to blame ourselves, for being too stupid or not reading the manual or having too-fat fingers. “I think there’s almost a belligerence—people are frustrated with their manufactured environment,” says Ive. “We tend to assume the problem is with us, and not with the products we’re trying to use.” In other words, when our tools are broken, we feel broken. And when somebody fixes one, we feel a tiny bit more whole.

A great article from Time Mag, Get the full story Here