[Sigia-l] Another brand of sugar: Apple multi-touch

[Will Parker]

On Jan 9, 2007, at 6:12 PM, Ziya Oz wrote:
> Over the last five years, the iPod made music fun again for 70 million
> people, can the iPhone do the same for mobile communication and  
> computing?
> Palm CEO Ed Colligan doesn't think so:
>
> Responding to questions from New York Times correspondent John  
> Markoff at a
> Churchill Club breakfast gathering Thursday morning, Colligan  
> laughed off
> the idea that any company -- including the wildly popular Apple  
> Computer --
> could easily win customers in the finicky smart-phone sector.
>
> "We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how  
> to make a
> decent phone,'' he said. "PC guys are not going to just figure this  
> out.
> They're not going to just walk in.''

Well, there's his mistake right there. "PC guys". Hasn't been  
watching the 'I'm a Mac \ I'm a PC ads', I guess.

> Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices  
> division,

There was a time when that division was named "Personal Services And  
Devices"; we all had lots of fun with that phrasing.

> made equally daft remarks about the bleak future of the upcoming  
> iPhone in a
> post-CES interview, I guess channeling Michael Dell.

Actually, no. He was clearly following the new Microsoft line, used  
by BillG at yesterday's CES keynote, which appears to be
"The ONLY way to make great products is to have a lot of partners".

(I could give you a more accurate quote, but I fell asleep over my  
laptop while Bill was showing off the Bus Stop Of The Future, where  
one gets bus schedules and virtual coupons from a magically-graffiti- 
free-and-not-smashed-to-smithereenies plasma display screen measuring  
about three meters on a side, instead of printed on cheap shoddy  
paper like the Neanderthals used.)

I noticed that Mister Jobs saw fit to tweak Mister Bill in today's  
keynote by prominently displaying the following quote from Alan Kay:

	"People who are really serious about software should make their own  
hardware."

As far as I can tell, the proximate source for that quote is at the  
Apple oral history site, folklore.org, which contains Andy  
Hertzfeld's notes taken during a talk given by Alan Kay.

Another pertinent snippet from those notes (which you *definitely*  
should read) is this quasi-haiku:

	"Snobbery:
		Turn up your nose at good ideas.
		You must work on great ideas, not good ones."

> You put up your presentation slides:
>
> Any MP3 player vs. the iPod
> Any remote control vs. Apple remote control
> Any one-piece PC vs. the iMac
> Any cellphone vs. the iPhone
> Etc.
>
> 'Nuff said.

Indeed.


- Will
Will Parker
wparker at ChannelingDesign.com

"The only people who value your specialist knowledge are the ones who  
already have it." - William Tozier