Tuesday, January 16, 2007
iPhone or ApplePhone: A milestone in technology
It seemed like with within hours of when I turned my last column, the announcements started coming from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and the Apple show in San Francisco.Wireless devices and big screen HD TVs dominated the CES displays. Apple stole the show—literally—when Steve Jobs got up on the stage in San Francisco and announced the existence of the iPhone. The phone captured the crowd at both shows with its innovative design.
With the current rate of progress in technology, it is often hard to pick out a true milestone device. I believe the iPhone (or possibly the ApplePhone depending on the results of a lawsuit over the name), will be one of those milestone devices. Jobs described it as the Internet in your pocket. The power of this device will redefine the role of cell phones in our lives. It brings together (convergence?) the elements of a cellular communications device, a music player, a camera, a video player and true Internet access.It is expensive, around $499 for the 4 Gg and $599 for the 8 Gg size, and only will be available from one carrier—Cingular. It won’t be available until June but techies are already queuing up for the device. Hopefully in time, the price will come down and the number of carriers will increase. The original iPod was considered to have similar handicaps. Apple refined the device until now it has a number of versions and the lion’s share of the personal music player market.
The device has only one button. Everything else is accessed through a touch screen interface. Some have said that takes a bit of getting used to but the touch screen makes the phone extremely versatile. It can be a touch pad or a video screen. It can be an Internet webpage or a camera viewfinder. People expect Apple to be innovative. They were not disappointed.
This device will be the subject of more columns in the future. You can’t see it now. But I’m working with a new version of the stardem Website. We have been listening to your comments. We are trying to incorporate as many of your concerns as possible. I can’t give a launch date yet. Stay tuned to the print paper and my blog for an announcement.
Plans are to make it live early in February. We hope you will find it easier to navigate. I want your views on it.
The new Windows operating system is still not very popular with our online visitors. Only 11 percent say they will install it. Forty-eight percent say they won’t will another 33 percent say they are going to wait. Another eight percent say they have Macs. That means a whopping 81 percent of the people who have responded and going to sit back and see if Vista is appropriate for them. Eventually we will all be using it on our PCs as new ones are bought. It is likely that few existing machines will be upgraded.
Did you hear what thepiratesbay.org is trying to do? The popular BitTorrent search site is trying to form its own country. The Swedish-based Website has been pestered by various governments because the bittorrent software is often used to transfer pirated material. Bittorent is a peer-assisted digital delivery platform that enables users to easily publish and download movies, music, games and other large files, according to a description on www.bittorrent.com.
Thepiratesbay.org is trying to buy a platform out in the North Sea off the United Kingdom and form its own sovereign nation. That way they won’t have to answer to any governmental authority. This could give some of those multi-national conglomerates an idea on how to control their destiny in the future.
Stay tuned for further developments.
As always you can reach me at rpolk@chespub.com or visit my blog reachable through the stardem.com website or directly at (webnotesonline.blog.com/).
With the current rate of progress in technology, it is often hard to pick out a true milestone device. I believe the iPhone (or possibly the ApplePhone depending on the results of a lawsuit over the name), will be one of those milestone devices. Jobs described it as the Internet in your pocket. The power of this device will redefine the role of cell phones in our lives. It brings together (convergence?) the elements of a cellular communications device, a music player, a camera, a video player and true Internet access.It is expensive, around $499 for the 4 Gg and $599 for the 8 Gg size, and only will be available from one carrier—Cingular. It won’t be available until June but techies are already queuing up for the device. Hopefully in time, the price will come down and the number of carriers will increase. The original iPod was considered to have similar handicaps. Apple refined the device until now it has a number of versions and the lion’s share of the personal music player market.
The device has only one button. Everything else is accessed through a touch screen interface. Some have said that takes a bit of getting used to but the touch screen makes the phone extremely versatile. It can be a touch pad or a video screen. It can be an Internet webpage or a camera viewfinder. People expect Apple to be innovative. They were not disappointed.
This device will be the subject of more columns in the future. You can’t see it now. But I’m working with a new version of the stardem Website. We have been listening to your comments. We are trying to incorporate as many of your concerns as possible. I can’t give a launch date yet. Stay tuned to the print paper and my blog for an announcement.
Plans are to make it live early in February. We hope you will find it easier to navigate. I want your views on it.
The new Windows operating system is still not very popular with our online visitors. Only 11 percent say they will install it. Forty-eight percent say they won’t will another 33 percent say they are going to wait. Another eight percent say they have Macs. That means a whopping 81 percent of the people who have responded and going to sit back and see if Vista is appropriate for them. Eventually we will all be using it on our PCs as new ones are bought. It is likely that few existing machines will be upgraded.
Did you hear what thepiratesbay.org is trying to do? The popular BitTorrent search site is trying to form its own country. The Swedish-based Website has been pestered by various governments because the bittorrent software is often used to transfer pirated material. Bittorent is a peer-assisted digital delivery platform that enables users to easily publish and download movies, music, games and other large files, according to a description on www.bittorrent.com.
Thepiratesbay.org is trying to buy a platform out in the North Sea off the United Kingdom and form its own sovereign nation. That way they won’t have to answer to any governmental authority. This could give some of those multi-national conglomerates an idea on how to control their destiny in the future.
Stay tuned for further developments.
As always you can reach me at rpolk@chespub.com or visit my blog reachable through the stardem.com website or directly at (webnotesonline.blog.com/).
# posted by Richard Polk @ 11:51 AM 
