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iPhone Arrives (Soon-ish)
Well, he did have one up his sleeve after all. Following much speculation, Apple's CEO Steve Jobs wowed guests at yesterday's Macworld with the company's first step into the mobile telecommunications world, the iPhone.
Combining iPod music and video playing functionality with a mobile phone and - exciting, this - a portable internet device, Apple hopes the iPhone will cause a revolution in the mobile marketplace. It certainly looks the part, doing away with buttons and a keyboard in favour of a glossy "Multitouch" screen protected by 200 patents.
Jobs claims the iPhone is five years ahead of its rivals - and, true to form, Apple's share prices rose following the announcement, while rival manufacturers wobbled. RIM, which makes BlackBerry devices, saw a share price fall of around 8 percent just after Jobs' speech: Nokia lost a couple of points.
So, will the iPhone have the same impact as the iPod, which dominates the media player market?
Certainly, it looks better than any other mobile phone we've seen. Its use of a version of Apple's OS interface guarantees it will be a pleasure to use, if perhaps not quite as simple as the iPod. Software for viewing images and video, for browsing the web and for making calls and taking SMS and email messages looks clear. Apple claims that thanks to its OS, users can multi-task and tasks can be integrated.
However, there are a few questions. One must take on trust that Apple's touchscreen keyboard works as well as Jobs claims it does: The demonstration yesterday showed emails must be entered via the same touchscreen keyboard and it is difficult to imagine that this will be as fast or fuss-free as the keyboard on a BlackBerry.
The iPhone has smartphone functionality that makes it more like a Treo or a BlackBerry: Apple is banking that non-business users will want constantly-on web access and email too, and are willing to pay a premium for it. It has been reported that many of the world's mobile phone users are interested only in phone functionality and rarely use cameras, calenders or music players.
In fairness to Apple, it isn't the only company hoping that "smartphones" will appeal to a wider public: BlackBerry, the roaming executive's tool of choice, recently launched the chic Pearl aimed at the consumer market. The reverse of the equation might be trickier for Apple, though. Your correspondent might be bouncing in his seat with delight that someone has finally produced a smartphone that syncs seamlessly with his iMac, but the iPhone is going to have to work with Windows as well if it is to capture more than Apple's slender cut of the home computer market.
Even consumers do decide they want smartphone email and web browsing facilities, how much they get depends on the telephone companies that have the device on their network. In the US, Cingular has exclusive rights when the phone becomes available in four months; there is no word of who will be selling the iPhone on its European launch (expected for the end of the year) or when it reaches Asia in 2008.
Mobile phone companies have notoriously pathetic approaches to the web. Fearing that they could lose out if web content every becomes free, as it has practically everywhere with PC access, they offer web content on a "walled garden" basis, where surfers get almost unlimited access to ringtones, sports results and horoscopes (for example) from the companies own content providers. Step outside this walled garden into Google or CNN, for example, and you can pay an arm and a leg for data.
It's no surprise that there hasn't been a mobile web revolution in the UK or Europe.
One British company, Hutchinson 3G, recently offered unlimited internet access to sites people might actually find interesting on its phones - for a reasonable monthly subscription, users can surf eBay, Google and so on without incurring huge charges. It launched in December to applause from tech pundits, but we don't have any figures for it, and so far, big competitors in the UK and Europe don't look as if they're ready to take up the challenge.
However, if everyone wants an iPhone, they may be forced to. Jobs says that the iPhone will start at $499 PLUS a two year contract with Cingular. Will domestic customers pay that sort of money to surf Orange World or Vodafone Live?
The iPhone could restructure how phone companies offer the internet to mobile users - and in doing so, open enormous new possibilities for mobile internet use.
