Photograph of Apple's ubiquitous iPhone. (Credit: Apple Inc.)
Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, is a controversial manager. He’s the type of person you either love or hate; there are no middle terms. However, most pundits will agree he’s a living icon who has greatly contributed to shape the American culture. Imagine the United States without an iMac, iPod or iPhone. It’s like taking the hamburger, the Fourth of July fireworks display or the Thanksgiving dinner away from the American scenario.
Walter Isaacson said these words about Steve Jobs, “Steve Jobs has the same creative imagination and ability to think differently that distinguished Einstein, and Bill Gates has the same intellectual intensity.”
Great men create great things. Such is the case with Steve Jobs and the iPhone. History will remember the iPhone as the gadget that changed the communications landscape. This technological darling set the standards for the rest of the industry. Since the introduction of the iPhone, the rest of the pack have been playing the catching up game.
On Monday, Apple raised the smart phone standards when it released the iPhone 4 into the wild. In a nutshell this latest release—which by the way, was Apple’s worst kept secret—is faster and thinner than previous models, with a crisper display and a more angular look. It has a 5-megapixel camera which can shoot and edit high-definition video, and a front-facing camera for video chats.
The iPhone 4, has a price tag of $199 for a model with 16 gigabytes of storage or $299 for one with 32 gigabytes with a two-year contract. It’s scheduled hit the shelves on June 24 in the United States and in 88 other countries by September 2010.
Analysts and developers were particularly impressed by the iPhone’s video chat feature, called FaceTime. For now, however, chats can be conducted only with other iPhone 4 owners, and only over Wi-Fi networks. Mr. Jobs said Apple would work with carriers to bring video chats to cellphone networks.
The phone includes a new high-resolution display and is powered by Apple’s A4 chip, the same microprocessor that is in the iPad tablet computer. Mr. Jobs said the phone’s battery life had been improved.
There were signs of Apple’s intensifying rivalry with Google. At one point, Mr. Jobs showed an e-mail message from a developer who said that he had made more money in the first day of sales of his iPad application than in five years of selling Google ads on his Web site.
Even as we speak, Google and others in the smartphone business are racing towards their design tables to cough out new products to beat this newly released baby. Competition is good. Competition works. Good Day.
Maybe this puts me in the status of being a curmudgeon, but I have never understood the compulsion people have with needing to possess the latest gadget, the newest model car or the biggest house on the block. I have probably the cheapest phone C&W sells, and guess what? I can make a call to anywhere the newest Iphone can, and without having to sign a two year contract which is harder to wiggle out of than if you sell your soul to the devil. And isn’t that what you’re doing when you sign up for the Iphone?
Perhaps my attitude stems from nearly 400 years of New England Puritan stock in my genes but as Henry David Thoreau said: “Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances…”
And once you have them, as Thoreau said: “I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of.” And so it is with the detritus of life such as Iphones and the like.
But that’s just my opinion.
Hi Richard:
I’m learning with your comments. The latest word is “curmudgeon”. I looked it up in the dictionary and it means, “a crusty irascible cantankerous person full of stubborn ideas.”
I agree with you about the trend of having the latest of everything and manufacturers pushing the consumer to buy their latest products.
All our bubbles and their disastrous results stem from the fact that people don’t buy what they, need. People buy because other persons dictate them what their needs are. I’m afraid this is an endemic problem which will be with us till the end of time.
Keep on coughing your opinions. They mean a lot to me.
Take Care,
Omar.-
I don’t think most of my ideas are stubborn, Omar, more on the practical side. But the rest of the definition has it pretty much tied down.
Hi Richard:
Sorry about that. I found the definition on the Internet, but I get your point.
Cheers,
Omar.-
Omar:
Su pagina web esta de vuelta a la normalidad.
Jaime^
Hola Jaime:
Me alegro mucho saberlo. No puedo explicarme qué sucedió. Lo importante es que todo ha vuelto a la normalidad.
Muchas gracias por sus atenciones en este asunto.
Saludos,
Omar.-
I let computers get to me once upon a time and it was Apple and their first and new Apple II Plus that did me in. I have a relatively new iMac here now but seldom use it. It is just too many clicks to get stuff done for me. So, it sits there or on a shelf.
Hi Abe:
My first computer was also an Apple. It was an Apple II-e and I bought it way back in 1983. Personal computers were almost unknown then.
Regarding your seldom used iMac, can’t you sell it to somebody who would be interested in this system?
Viewed your flowers this morning. Awesome!
Regards,
Omar.-
I haven’t tried. I just suspected most people would be reluctant to send me that much money without having the computer in their hands. I would be reluctant to sent somebody I don’t know, the computer until I had their money in my hands. So it is a kind of dilemma. I paid a lot for it and would take about $1200.
Hi Abe:
Too bad. For many of us, that’s a great computer. Apple products have a high demand in this country.
Cheers,
Omar.-