So it's shiny. It's new. It turns sideways or something! But also you can only send 200 texts a month, which is patently ABSURD, and it doesn't have instant messenger. So it is essentially a tiny, pretty Mac brick that takes phone calls. TAN and Blakeley asked the peoples that you meet on the street so that the coolhunters can work from home today.
Realists know the iPhone is the best browser for cheating on quiz night or for a bit of porn in the bathroom. Mac fanboys may not want to admit it, but the Jesusphone is perfect for some less than holy uses.
No self-driving cars, no virtual-reality PCs. For all the promise of futuristic technology, it ends up entering our lives as a series of annoyances: spam, impossible-to-open plastic packaging, those pagers you hold while waiting for your table at Applebee's. Laptop users invade our cafes. Cell phone rings interrupt our conversations. And the future will just make it worse.
The Silicon Valley tech corps is doubtless too exhausted and giddy from liveblogging today's Steve Jobs keynote at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference to rake it over the coals. Please, allow us. Here's a recap of what Jobs announced — and how much impact it will have on the Valley.1. Almost a million Apple developers. Jobs threw this out casually, but the number of programmers registered with Apple for updates is up 25 percent in a year. That's a huge victory for Apple, which has long suffered from a lack of Mac apps compared to Windows. Impact: 9 Surprise: 5 2. Apple's got game. Every five years or so, Jobs trots out John Carmack of Id Software, who proclaims his renewed enthusiasm for the Mac platform. The only problem: Jobs does this only every five years or so. Today's promises of more Mac games should be viewed in that light: Apple owes its weak lineup of Mac games to its on-again, off-again approach to videogame developers. Impact: 3 Surprise: 1 3. Log into your Mac from anywhere. Most of Jobs's Mac OS X Leopard was a rehash of already announced features. But this was new and significant: You'll be able to use Apple's .Mac service to log into your home Mac from any other Mac. That's a good reason for families with one Mac to add another. In other words, unlike most of Leopard's ho-hum new features, this one could actually lead to more Mac sales. Impact: 7 Surprise: 10 4. iPhone will run Web apps. A brilliant move that at once weakens Microsoft, strengthens Google, and quiets critics: Apple will let Ajax-ified Web applications like Gmail run on the iPhone. Some had demanded that Apple open up the iPhone to allow programmers to write native applications, a move Jobs resisted because of security and bandwidth concerns. By making the iPhone a platform for Web apps, Jobs is giving that nascent software platform a boost, while discouraging programmers from writing Windows-only apps. Impact: 9 Surprise: 8 5. Google and Apple integration — not! Less than two hours ago, every tech pundit on the planet was predicting that Google ZCEO Eric Schmidt would take the stage, Google and Apple would strike a deal to integrate Google's back-end Web services like email into the Mac, and Apple would make its .Mac service free. He didn't show, and it didn't happen. Impact: 0 Surprise: 10
We hate to interrupt the Apple lovefest with a tiresome observation about currency markets. But for anyone still outside the reality distortion field, here's some required reading: A Wall Street Journal article about the rise in value of the South Korean won (reg. required). Here's why this is bad news for the iPhone.What's an iPhone? Mostly a metal and plastic package for a flash-memory chip and an LCD screen. And where do those come from? Largely from South Korea, home to Samsung, LG, and countless other parts-makers. Those poor souls get paid in dollars, which are worth less as the won gets more valuable. Apple, whose profits have been supercharged by rapidly falling component prices over the past year, will have a tough time negotiating lower prices. If the won appreciates further, forget hopes of an iPhone cheaper than its current $499 price tag.
NICK DOUGLAS — One in four high schoolers would drop $500 on an iPhone, according to a poll by banking firm Piper Jaffray. Ahem. As a recovering ex-teen (on the wagon for three years as of Tuesday), let me channel the psychology of a high schooler. I am told about a hip product that will elevate you among my peers. I am asked to speculate, in a consequence-free context, whether I would spend my next two McDonald's paychecks on this product. I will tell you "sure." And I'll probably tell you my plan to get my own car, man. Yeah, and an apartment, cause I'm sick of Mom and Dad. Totally, man, totally. (Photo: duncandavidson)
NICK DOUGLAS — Going green is no longer the new black. Say hello to RF energy, a way to power cell-sized devices wirelessly. A startup named Powercast, according to PC Magazine, expects to release such technology next year. (Business 2.0 loves 'em.) Their big breakthrough? Pushing the amount of energy wasted in such a transfer from 90% down to, oh, 30-50%. Guess someone's not looking for funding from Al Gore.
NICK DOUGLAS — Are Macs just for hipster designers? Not at all! Maybe you've wanted to switch to a Mac, but you were afraid it wouldn't work with your Office files. Maybe you can't convince your parents they won't lose their vacation photos. Maybe your boss thinks Macs are toys not meant for serious adults. For all those cases, here are 42 reasons that normal people can switch to Macs.
Continuing today's massive overload of Vlog Hot polling effluvia, here's a little something for the ladies. Gaze in wondrous adoration on the first round of dudes — these among the finest nerds to be found in the universe of netbound moving imagery. We'll try to get all the heats up today, and let polling commence through the week, or near enough as makes no difference. Votey vote vote after the jump.
If you can't see the voting mechanism below, we can't help you. We don't know how it works either. You might try turning off firewalls and turning on cookies. Note that you can now vote more than once! And why not? You should be able to vote once per day in any of these polls, showing true devotion to your favorite vlogger by suborning the more casual, ephemeral love showered on her or his opponents. Again, if you have technical problems with that, don't call us. For amusement only, far as you're concerned.
Apparently uninterested in the possibility of accidentally gaining microwave-based superpowers, San Franciscans are objecting to the growing number of microcell antennae planted surreptitiously in residential areas. Microcells are ostensibly designed to fill in coverage holes that big antennae can't reach, but since installing microcells requires no public or civic review beyond a building permit, they're easy for cellphone providers to slap up indiscriminately. The only concrete objections at present are aesthetic and safety, the latter on the grounds of wires blocking fire escapes. No correlation has yet been established with the increasing incidence of newborns with heat vision.
Google's sprawling, cheerfully dystopian campus at Mountain View may intimidate the first-time visitor. But there's no need to fear. The easy rule of thumb dictates that the most concentrated power centers gravitate toward the middle (where the engineers and their excellent cafeterias reside). But once you get past the first impressions, you'll need a little guidance. After the jump, enjoy our annotated map of 25 sights to take in across the entire Google campus before you die, and/or are killed by Google's very understanding but nevertheless lethal security forces. Dinosaurs! Pools! Massage parlors! Endless bowls of bisque! It's all here.
What did Microsoft get for splurging half a billion dollars to hype the Windows Vista release? Apparently, a public reaction that paled in comparison to the heady days of Windows 95 (shudder). Rather than vast heaving lines of eager consumers broken up by occasional gunplay, release-day mobs for Vista (in New York at least) petered out in under an hour. Marketers have several explanations for Vista's lack of curb appeal — media balkanization, short attention spans, that old devil Internet — even though all their excuses don't stop the crowds gathering outside any Apple Store whenever Steve Jobs clears his throat.
PAUL BOUTIN — Wall Street Journal uber-reviewer Walt Mossberg replied at length to Valleywag's email inquiry yesterday, in which I asked why he mentions Apple's Mac OS X so many times in his review of Microsoft Windows Vista. He obviously thinks the Mac still whups Vista, yet doesn't tell his loyal readers to consider a Mac instead of the pricey new PC most will need to buy to run Vista's best features. Are they holding a gun to his head there, or what? The Sage of Potomac replied instantly, but his email got stuck in the tubes for most of a day. Walt's full response after the jump.See also: David Pogue calls Vista "a truck"
PAUL BOUTIN — Vista or OS X? The star reviewers at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both point out Microsoft's new operating system (a) requires a new, beefed-up PC to use its best features, and (b) seems like an inferior copy of Apple's Mac OS X. David Pogue and Walt Mossberg are both known Mac fans. Each spends a good chunk of his review praising OS X over Vista. It leaves a reader wondering: Should I buy a Vista PC or get one of those Macs, and why didn't they tell me which? Are Pogue and Mossberg appeasing Mac fanboys without actually advocating Apple? Were they ordered not to blurt out VISTA SUCKS GET A MAC? After the jump, Pogue takes the bait.
Rex Farrance, senior tech editor at PC World, was shot to death during a break-in by four masked intruders at his home in the Bay Area suburb of Pittsburg, California. Farrance's wife was also pistol-whipped during the attack. Police are calling it narcoviolence, saying "We have substantial reason to believe that the victim and his wife were involved in the possession and, potentially, the distribution of illegal narcotics." The Farrance's son claims the only drug present was his medically prescribed marijuana stash, grown and stored with his parents' permission. (Though of course, just because the pot was legal doesn't mean the thugs didn't come to steal it.) Either way, harsh.
NICK DOUGLAS — Mmm, the Taser, America's favorite legal civilian weapon, favorite tool of cops on both baddies and protesters, and always good for video fun. I've compiled one electrical montage some of the best Taser shots on the Internet, including three celebrity tasings from Armed and Famous, premiered on TV tonight. NSFW, due to the screaming.
Okay, we know we asked for Sean Delonas before, but this is much, much better. Ladies and gentlemen, from the people who brought you Journalist Gets Tased and Publicist Gets Tased, we are proud to direct you to Rack Gets Tased. This is pretty much how our dreams play out every night, so it's nice to see in real life.
PAUL BOUTIN — True story in my inbox: "I just went into the Apple store in Soho to buy the Apple TV device. Asked the shop assistant. Clearly not the first. February, he answered, tersely." Hey pal, didn't you pay attention? None of the gadgets unveiled today — the iPhone, Apple TV, the new Airport Extreme with 802.11n — will hit the stores for at least a month. Whatever happened to "and it's available TODAY?"
