Apple delivered with iPhone on multiple fronts

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 11 January 2007 17:38

Your IT - Mobility

We wanted a widescreen iPod with Bluetooth, an iPhone, a new version of Mac OS X, a ‘Mac Tablet’, wireless capabilities and a new ultrathin ‘Mac’. We got them!

If you, like me, were expecting a stack of new products from Apple… Apple delivered. But did anyone expect they’d deliver them all in the same device? Not really. We all expected multiple, separate products, like a 5th Gen iPod replacement that was wireless and widescreen.

A separate iPod phone, which we all thought would be called the iPod phone, because iPhone was taken by Cisco, which we’ve now learned is not so happy that Apple has hijacked the name before negotiations were complete.

We wanted a new version of OS X, although we were all expecting OS X 10.5. Some of us were expecting a Mac Tablet and/or an ultrathin MacBook.

The iPhone, it can be said, is all of these, and more. It has what is demonstrably a new version of OS X. It is a Tablet, although it uses your finger as a stylus instead of a thin plastic stick that’s easy to lose. It’s also an ultrathin Mac. Apple might call it an iPhone, but really, it’s the tiniest Mac we’ve ever seen. After all, it runs Mac OS X.

As you’d be able to on a Mac Tablet or an ultrathin Mac, you can surf the Web on the device, send and receive emails and run a range of software, although at this stage it appears limited to the software already shipped with the iPhone.

But if like me, you noticed that the last row of icons on the iPhone stopped one short of the end of the screen, with another blank row underneath, more applications will soon be on the way, which consumers will hopefully be able to program if Apple is willing to allow third party developer access.

And of course, it’s wireless. Wireless music transfer a la the squirt is not available, although this is obviously by designed and not by technical limitation. We’re told there is Bluetooth 2.0 EDR, but does this also mean that it can be used with the A2DP standard of Bluetooth that allows wireless Bluetooth stereo headsets to stream music directly from the iPhone?

Sadly, we don’t know this yet. But it too is clearly technologically possible, as the competition allows such things and A2DP capable Bluetooth stereo headsets with corresponding volume and playback controls have been on the market for well over a year now.

If 2007 really is the big year Apple says it will be, I am sure they intend to do much, much more than just release the iPhone. Multitap technology could easily be used on a new MacBook. The LCD screen on a MacBook could be touch enabled, while the touchpad could be Multitap enabled, too.

So, what about the real Mac Tablet? Or OS X 10.5? Read on to page 2 for the conclusion...