"Oxford" <colalovesmacs@smart.com> wrote in message
news:colalovesmacs-6DD99A.14373101112007@mpls-nnrp-05.inet.qwest.net...
> 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 > 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 > 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 > time > 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

Don't you mean the greatest disaster of the 21st century.