Still Waiting for the World to Shake
Actually, the hovercar is the hovercar I’m waiting for.
From seeing the guided tour and reading the reviews so far, including John Gruber’s and Jason Kottke’s, I’m excited by the changes the iPhone brings to the market, but I’m not excited by the iPhone.
It looks nice and I’m sure it’s fun to use. It’s just not the open, hackable, convergent computer/server/media player-in-a-pocket I’ve been waiting for.
My BlackBerry has Gmail, Google Maps, Gtalk, and a web browser that I don’t have to zoom. It’s also got a calendar, notes, and to-do list. And it had all these things last summer. It also uses T-Mobile, a service I’ve been very happy with. It doesn’t have the multimedia capabilities of the iPhone, and that’s a bummer. It also doesn’t have WiFi access. But the BlackBerry has SSH so I can connect to my web servers. Does the iPhone have SSH? It also has a nice keyboard that puts all the keys in the right place. I can also install and uninstall programs at will and I can use the phone as a Bluetooth modem for my laptop.
And let me say it again. I’m excited by the idea of the iPhone. It moves us forward a little bit. But, really, aside from the interface features and beautiful industrial design Apple is known for, there is nothing preventing another company from duplicating and surpassing the iPhone in terms of features and ease of use.
Game changer? Well. Earthquake? Meh. Can we stop with the marketing hype now?
(By the way, this post was written on a Macbook, the best computer I’ve owned.)
2 Comments
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Steve Love spoke thusly:
I’m also tired of “news” organizations perpetuating the marketing hype. If I understand the headlines correctly, I – and everyone else in the world – have done little else but think about the iPhone and the day I plop down $500 to own it.
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Steve Love spoke thusly:
By the way, these comments were written on my new Lenovo 3000 N200, the best notebook PC I have owned.
