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No squirting, no wireless syncing, no iTunes on iPhone says Apple VP

by Stan Beer

Thursday, 11 January 2007

Having played with and caressed an iPhone for a full three minutes during a group interview with Greg Joswiak, VP iPod products at Apple, I was awestruck by the simplicity, yet power of this unbelievably slim and sleek device. However, one gets the feeling that Apple is still keeping a tight rein on letting us know what drives this device and what it can and cannot do that we haven’t already seen.

For instance, we all know that the iPhone must have a reasonable amount of memory and a fairly powerful processor to run Mac OS X. However, when asked how much memory, Joswiak, answered simply: “We haven’t talked about that yet.” I guess that’s Apple-speak for we’re not talking about that yet. No one bothered to ask about the processor.

During his keynote address, Jobs showed us the power of the iPhone with a fairly comprehensive demonstration. I got to try out some of the features myself, such as the accelerometer that realigns the pics from landscape to portrait simply by rotating the screen and resizing a photo by simply moving your finger and thumb together or further apart.

The iPhone feels light yet robust and despite being nearly all screen, the transparent coated plastic screen feels tough and scratch resistant. It fits into your hand and shirt pocket easily and feels as comfortable against your ear as any standard mobile phone.

I composed some test email messages, scrolled up and down the screen using my index finger to read emails, listened to some voice mail messages, placed a phone call (and hung up), got into the SMS system, did some web browsing and typed on the onscreen keyboard. It all worked beautifully and I was amazed at how easy it was to get used to from the moment it touched my palm.

Yet the iPhone could do even more if Apple so desired. When asked if iPhone users are going to be able to “squirt” songs at fellow users in a Wi-Fi zone like the Zune, Joswiak answered tongue-in-cheek: “Squirt, what’s that.” He made it pretty clear that squirting wasn’t on the agenda.

Joswiak also confirmed that despite its wireless capabilities, wireless syncing was out for the iPhone. “You sync in the same way as an iPod through a wired connection,” he said.

“There’s a couple of reasons for this. One is that it’s the fastest way to transfer data and the other is that with a wired connection you don’t get security issues.”

The Apple VP also quashed any speculation that the iPhone may itself house a self-contained version of iTunes. “iTunes was designed to exist on the Mac and PCs. That’s where the music should live.”

As for the possibility of having increased storage for movies (after all we do have a 3.5 inch screen), well Joswiak says there will be no hard disk – just flash RAM.

When asked why Apple had chosen to go with an exclusive relationship with just one carrier for its market entry, Joswiak said: “We couldn’t create a solution for customers like this by ourselves. For instance, we couldn’t do visual voice mail on our own. We needed Cingular.”

However, Joswiak was non-committal as to whether Apple would enter Europe and other markets with similar exclusive deals. “As we go to each market, we’re going to have to make a decision as we enter those markets,” he said.

So why go with GSM and EDGE and not 3G to enter the market in the US?

“GSM and EDGE are the most widely deployed in the US. We would expect Wi-Fi to be used for data and the transition to Wi-Fi is seamless,” Wosniak said.

But wouldn’t Apple need to enter the more advanced telecommunications market of Europe with a 3G solution?

"We'll cross the European bridge when we get to it." Joswiak said. {moscomment}

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