Larry <noone@home.com> wrote:

iPhone is the invention of the YEAR - TIME Magazine

This goes without question of course, nothing so remarkable has ever
been introduced to the phone market probably since the rotary dial or
original phone back in 1876.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:1..._Telephone.jpg

The iPhone changes EVERYTHING we knew before.

Congrats Apple for showing phone makers how a PHONE should actually work!


1. The iPhone design

Most high-tech companies don't take design seriously. They treat it as
an afterthought. Window-dressing. But one of Jobs' basic insights about
technology is that good design is actually as important as good
technology. All the cool features in the world won't do you any good
unless you can figure out how to use said features, and feel smart and
attractive while doing it.

An example: look at what happens when you put the iPhone into "airplane"
mode (i.e., no cell service, WiFi, etc.). A tiny little orange airplane
zooms into the menu bar! Cute, you might say. But cute little touches
like that are part of what makes the iPhone usable in a world of useless
gadgets. It speaks your language. In the world of technology, surface
really is depth.

2. It's touchy-feely

Apple didn't invent the touchscreen. Apple didn't even reinvent it
(Apple probably acquired its much hyped multitouch technology when it
snapped up a company called Fingerworks in 2005). But Apple knew what to
do with it. Apple's engineers used the touchscreen to innovate past the
graphical user interface (which Apple helped pioneer with the Macintosh
in the 1980s) to create a whole new kind of interface, a tactile one
that gives users the illusion of actually physically manipulating data
with their hands‹flipping through album covers, clicking links,
stretching and shrinking photographs with their fingers.

This is, as engineers say, nontrivial. It's part of a new way of
relating to computers. Look at the success of the Nintendo Wii. Look at
Microsoft's new Surface Computing division. Look at how Apple has
propagated its touchscreen interface to the iPod line with the iPod
Touch. Can it be long before we get an iMac Touch? A TouchBook? Touching
is the new seeing.

3. It will make other phones better

Jobs didn't write the code inside the iPhone. These days he doesn't
dirty his fingers with 1's and 0's, if he ever really did. But he did
negotiate the deal with AT&T to carry the iPhone. That's important: one
reason so many cell phones are lame is that cell-phone-service providers
hobble developers with lame rules about what they can and can't do. AT&T
gave Apple unprecedented freedom to build the iPhone to its own
specifications. Now other phone makers are jealous. They're demanding
the same freedoms. That means better, more innovative phones for all.

4. It's not a phone, it's a platform

When Apple made the iPhone, it didn't throw together some cheap-o
bare-bones firmware. It took OS X, its full-featured desktop operating
system, and somehow squished it down to fit inside the iPhone's elegant
glass-and-stainless-steel case. That makes the iPhone more than just a
gadget. It's a genuine handheld, walk-around computer, the first device
that really deserves the name. One of the big trends of 2007 was the
idea that computing doesn't belong just in cyberspace, it needs to
happen here, in the real world, where actual stuff happens. The iPhone
gets applications like Google Maps out onto the street, where we really
need them.

And this is just the beginning. Platforms are for building on. Last
month, after a lot of throat-clearing, Apple decided to open up the
iPhone, so that you‹meaning people other than Apple employees‹will be
able to develop software for it too. Ever notice all that black blank
space on the iPhone's desktop? It's about to fill up with lots of tiny,
pretty, useful icons.

5. It is but the ghost of iPhones yet to come

The iPhone has sold enough units‹more than 1.4 million at press
time‹that it'll be around for a while, and with all that room to develop
and its infinitely updatable, all-software interface, the iPhone is
built to evolve. Look at the iPod of six years ago. That monochrome
interface! That clunky touchwheel! It looks like something a caveman
whittled from a piece of flint using another piece of flint. Now imagine
something that's going to make the iPhone look that primitive. You'll
have one in a few years. It'll be very cool. And it'll be even cheaper.

http://www.time.com/time/business/ar...678581,00.html

> Did you take your meds at 5?

Laughing at you is the best medicine I've found

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