iphone

Well I may be late to the party, but eventually I get around to it.  More than one person has asked me what I think of the new Apple iPhone and as is my pattern, have answered with my usual candour and pragmatism.  It seemed however I was repeating myself a lot, so felt compelled to put to print what my thoughts on this matter are.  I may flatter myself but I like to think people are curious about my opinion on this product because of my expertise in mobile technologies and in particular mobile rich media.  Or maybe they're just trying to make conversation to the guy seated next to them on the bus :).

Well not quite. iPods are great at what they do and will certainly sell well for several years to come. Today, however, Apple Inc. made a big step towards device convergence by introducing its iPhone (just like we predicted not too long ago).

It is widely agreed that Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple posesses a reality distortion field. His brilliantly produced keynotes (the apparent simplicity and clearness comes at a high price) make everyone think something along the lines of "Why didn't another company come up with this before? The idea is so obvious! I'm getting this gadget the day it comes out!". It doesn't matter if someone else thought of the same thing earlier (recall our coverage of Chamelephones), if there are numerous problems that have yet to be addressed or if the price is painfully high. Steve makes it seem like the new era is here and anyone can be a part of it.

Pocketcine Mobile Video Contest

On February 1, 2007, Pocketcine will be running a mobile video contest on Renderosity (www.renderosity.com). The contest runs from February 1, 2007 until February 28, 2007.

The theme of the contest is wide open. The mobile video you create for the contest can be on any subject, created with the software of your choice. The only requirement is that it be created in a pixel resolution (320x240) that will allow it to be played on new generation mobile devices like the iPhone. If you have ever created a video for YouTube, then you already know how to create a video for the contest.

 

The iPod. It wasn’t the first MP3 player out there… But it quickly turned out to be the best. A combination of ingenious design, successful marketing and great complimentary software made this little gadget a Holy Grail of electronics. Everyone, from Sony to Microsoft tried to introduce their own solutions, often portrayed as definite “iPod killers”. Yet, the iPod still outsells any other portable music device by a large margin. At first glance, it seems that nothing (not even Microsoft’s Zune) can threaten is dominance… But there’s one major factor. Cell phones.