The beauty of diversity
The worst part of pulling of AAPL out before the keynote started was that the two products Steve announced were eerily similar to products I'd been calling for in our little community for years.
The iTV box is virtually identical to something I'd visualized something like 5 years ago, with the addition of AV (and the necessary bandwidth to support it): I'd called for a little box that would sit next to the stereo and stream music from iTunes to be broadcast over the home's primary home theater system. This was mostly satisfied when Apple released the AirPort Express, but someone else here (or on RB) later asked 'why not add video?' Alas, this was long enough ago that RB wiped it along with everything else they hosted before 2003. It's probably on a backup server somewhere along with a lot of GK shenanigans that they're likely to be severely embarrassed by (if not liable for). Lotta good reasons to be gone from there.
The iPhone actualizes a more recent brainstorm I wrote while considering some of Jef Raskin's comments on the state of UI, when I conceptualized a multi-function device that would have a specific UI for each discrete function. I might not have considered the cell phone as one of the devices (or even an iPod) in my initial musing on that subject, but not long after I recall also writing about another killer app that has not yet been actualized (by Apple or anyone else) using a cell phone platform. But that could easily be added to the iPhone later, since it is so flexible: a home automation controller (including a home theater remote) controlled by voice. This might require Apple to advance the state of the art on voice recognition, or else incorporate someone else's software to do the same, but if there's any pointing device in the universe that's simpler than the finger, it's the voice. Put the iPhone into remote control mode and use it to program your TiVo, your thermostat, whatever. You could even do that from a remote location. I know I posted that more recently than my iTV musings on RB, perhaps I even posted them here, but couldn't find them when I did a cursory search a couple weeks ago when I had an inkling that maybe what Apple was hiding might be both a multi-function device and an iPhone (though I still didn't necessarily think they would be in the same box).
Is there a market for something like the iRemote I describe (again)? Probably, especially in a couple years when iPhone competitors are starting to appear and Apple might need a differentiator to justify continuing to charge premium prices for a premium product.
Lots of stuff still to come, that's for sure.
On another subject, Dell introduced their rumored liquid-cooled computer ("Black Ice") yesterday. Not that this should get anyone here particularly worked up ... it's just (yet) another PC, after all. My apologies to realfast95 for coming down on him more harshly than is my usual wont this week for his insistence that liquid-cooled computers were all relics of the past, despite ample evidence to the contrary, some provided politely by yours truly but ignored. In the same vein, I don't have a big problem with MiMic including his (scaled-down) Taser ad in every post, though the accompanying attitude that he would do whatever he dang well pleased whatever the moderator asked (politely or not) might require revisiting. We gots too much to be happy about to be sweating the small stuff, I think.
I wish y'all peace, prosperity, and good health. I offer my congraulations to you and everyone else who shared OwlEars' good sense in ignoring my overhasty moves yesterday mornings.
And thanks, Steve and everyone at Apple, for all the great stuff.
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