Have you been sick of the sodding iPhone rumours? They’ve been never-ending, they really have.
Tomorrow at 6pm London, the industry will take a collective deep breath and hold it for 90-odd minutes.
Well, I presume something like 90 minutes. I haven’t actually looked at any timings. I can’t be bothered.
I’ve had enough of it. Just tell me the news already.
It is exciting, though.
Let’s insert a period of self-reflection. I’m only ever satisfied with grand announcements at this level. I’m hoping for big things. I’d like to see a repetition of that original iPhone keynote when my mind expanded with excitement at the prospect of people being able to write ‘apps’ for this platform — and be able to distribute them easily, well, actually, have Apple do the distribution for you, via their new ‘App Store’.
I’d like to see some big NFC news. Facebook and Twitter integration should be stimulating to consider.
I’d like to see some good, smart, expansive thinking from Apple.
I really don’t want to see iPhone 4.1. You know, better camera and a few cosmetic bollocky additions — and a new price point. That, I’d like to take as read.
I want to see the next generation from Apple. I hope we will get a glimpse, at least.
I’m keen to hear more about iCloud. Can I finally free myself from the rather shit limited iTunes/iPhoto ‘desktop’ experience? I hope so. I’m also looking forward to playing with iOS 5.0 properly — I hope it’s actually released tomorrow.
What else?
It’ll be interesting to see how the company presents itself (without, we presume, Mr Jobs on stage at all).
I do wonder how the reality distortion field will bear up without the man himself. He’s always been closely associated with these keynotes so I’m keen to see how the rest of the team come across.
My preferred way of doing consuming these events is to follow along with a few liveblogs — loosely — and then watch the whole keynote, end-to-end, later on that evening once it’s hit the Apple site.
Above all the most exciting part of a keynote announcement is the knowledge that whilst you and I are evaluating the new kit/service offerings, hundreds of massive companies are hastily convening board meetings to collectively do some unplanned ‘brick shitting’ (as one executive described the experience) as a result of the news. Bring it on! 😉
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Ewan,
I am driving in the car this morning with my children to school, twin 10 year olds. My browser has just lost data connection on my Galaxy S. My son asks me why I went with a Samsung, (which, by the way, I am very happy with). He says he never has problems like this on his iTouch and his friends with iPhones, (yes 10 year olds have iPhones), never have this problem.
I tried to explain to him why I bought the Galaxy S, (TMobile customer that didn’t have iPhone option, better hardware, better camera, etc.), but he didn’t really buy it. He sees the iProducts as cool, they work, they work, they are cool, they have cool things on them, they work, they are cool, get my point here…
When you look out 10 years, where is Apple? I continually talk about this. To the U.S. youth, Apple, and for that matter, the iOS products, are cool and what kids want. As they grow up this is not, in most likelihood, going away. They are growing up hearing about iOS and this is what they all want. As much as others come out, iOS will always be tops on their minds.
The conversation above is not new. It happens all the time with my children’s friends. Apple has done a remarkable job with the youth and with a great deal of folks and for this, the payday down the road should be ample.
Thoughts?
Giff Gfroerer
i2SMS
I look forward to hearing how iPhone has taken another step closer to where Nokia phones were about 1 to 4 years ago (depending on feature).
And the big NFC news is in the Nokia N9 (have you seen that?) and separately in Symbian Belle and the new Symbian handsets – Apple can’t make it better or simpler than Nokia have tapping phones together to share data e.g. pics, or tapping the phone on a Play 360 speaker to get it to play music over NFC instantly and automatically, or tapping on a 2nd Play 360 speaker to automatically switch mono to stereo and get each speaker to say out loud what channel (L or R) it’s playing.
And the iPhone UI? Old hat compared to the N9 UI. Nokia have out-simplified iPhone (no home button on the N9) in hardware and UI. And before someone says “yeah but the N9’s dead before it arrives” – a common misconception as a.) it will sell loads and b.) The Swipe UI, and the NFC live on in millions of Symbian Belle phones and hundreds of millions of future S40 phones.
So.. just how disappointed were you? Personally, all prejudices against Apple aside, I thought it was one of the weakest announcements ever. The 4S had only one real innovation and that was the dual aerial. Siri will, from experience with Google Voice be much underused by the majority as you can never really speak clearly enough and who wants to look a dork speaking to their phone on the train? Apple Cards – interesting but Touchnote almost does that and I am sure they could with a little tweak. iCloud we knew about and IOS5 has been much discussed in the press already. Building in HSDPA is neat but here in the UK how many of the MNO’s can support that? Battery life looks good but that is just advancement not innovation.
In the cold light of day, Apple is still delivering a raft of phenomenal experiences when compared to other vendors.
I’m disappointed not to see some giant gestures. It did feel a little bit like something just in advance of a maintenance release! I know that’s not quite the reality but its how I responded to it.
So much focus has been naturally on hardware that it’s a little too easy to say ‘ah yeah, the services are great, but..’ — when, actually, the fact it *just works* will be keeping a lot of people loyal to Apple in the coming years.
Did you see the post I published today about Nokia, Alex? Published that for you!
And if you can put each of those children on to an Apple iCloud platform and get them hooked at age 10? Nice…