iTimes with Tony Bove

As I watch the Steve Jobs keynote unfold at the World Wide Developer’s Conference here in S.F., I recall the jackhammers I’d passed on the way in, and figured it to be an apt metaphor: Apple is jackhammering the mobile computing and mobile phone industries to create this groundbreaking platform. The most important parts of the announcement were:

• Feature-rich — with 3G speed that comes close to WiFi, and GPS for location-based apps
• Affordable — the low-end iPhone 3G is only $199
• Enterprise-ready — with the capability to push VPN and tightly-secure configurations and new custom apps that work behind the firewall, iPhones could replace laptops in the field
• Lifestyle-ready — with MobileMe you can keep all devices synchronized all the time, and use all your computing resources on the road with just an iPhone or iPod touch

See Engadget’s keynote coverage, which is detailed and has great pictures; MacRumors Live coverage, which offers a concise report (and was the most up-to-date as the keynote unfolded); and CNET News coverage, which offers a bit more analysis.

The iPhone and iPod touch are huge, everyone knows that by now. The iPhone 3G, coming in July, will be affordable, removing one major obstacle to mass acceptance. It is by far the best mobile computer and phone out there. As Jobs said in his keynote, “… users love the iPhone. 90% customer satisfaction — that’s off the charts. What products today have that? 98% are browsing — mobile browsing has gone from nothing to 98% with the iPhone. 94% are using email, 90% are using SMS — 80% are using 10 or more features. You can’t even begin to figure out how to use 10 features on a normal phone!”

The iPhone 2 software (which also works in iPod touch) will provide added value to the enterprise world, where custom iPhone applications can be distributed and secured. Besides a plethora of custom iPhone apps, we’ll soon see apps that access all the major business applications (such as SAP and Oracle) and Web services (such as Salesforce.com). The ad-hoc distribution limited to 100 iPhones will work in classrooms in medical centers to completely change the role of mobile computing in those worlds.

It all adds up to a burgeoning platform for developers to change the world of mobile computing, and it leaves all competitors in the dust — especially Microsoft Windows Mobile and whatever new service Microsoft comes up with to compete with MobileMe. Essentially Apple has found the perfect way to please existing customers and bring new customers into the Apple ecosystem, and which is a far richer ecosystem than any competitor.

The recent study by Rubicon about how people use the iPhone came to several interesting conclusions, but the one that resonates with me, a baby boomer, is that 28% of respondents said “strongly” that they often carry the iPhone instead of a notebook PC. Another 29% “mildly” agreed. Only 21% “strongly” disagreed.

I think the question made sense more for the older generation (over 30), because the younger generation wouldn’t answer this question the same way — they don’t carry notebook PCs as much because they already use phones for texting. Roughly half of all iPhone users, according to this study, are under age 30 and 15% are students, and I think it’s likely this entire half of the iPhone population didn’t react the same way to the question. Students, for example, couldn’t use an iPhone in class in place of a laptop.

Besides, younger people don’t feel the weight as much. A large percentage of the older-generation users — those who once carried laptops around for email and browsing, and baby boomers whose shoulders are now stooped — are carrying iPhones instead. I’m certainly one. Neck strain is a thing of the past.

Another interesting conclusion is that among the one-third of iPhone users who carry a second mobile phone, Research in Motion’s Blackberry was the most popular second phone, carried by almost one iPhone user in ten. Another question skewed to the older generation — Blackberries are popular mostly with business users in enterprises, who need them to access Microsoft Exchange mail servers. As this capability reaches the iPhone, the need for a second Blackberry evaporates.

Another study from iSuppli points out that owners of competing products — such as Nokia’s N92 or the Blackberry — use their phones for voice communications 71.7% the time compared to iPhone owners spending just 46.5% of their time with voice calls. The conclusion is that Apple has come closer than any other company to making a  truly convergent device used for multiple purposes.

Blogs are just gushing about it. The iPhone and iPod touch will soon act like the handheld computers they were made to be. Apple announced iPhone 2.0 software and the software development kit (SDK) for software developers, the App Store online store for developers to place their wares, and the new capabilities — including better VPN support, Microsoft Exchange compatibility and push mail — that put the iPhone in head-to-head combat with the RIM Blackberry.

The SDK has exceeded developer’s expectations — in fact, Apple’s servers supplying the beta for download were overwhelmed. Third-party native iPhone and iPod touch applications will flood the market by June, sporting the touch interface. Developers have a solid database (SQL Lite, an open-source database) and Cocoa Touch, the built-in set of APIs that re-creates the Cocoa tool set used to handle the user-interface-generated events in Mac OS X. It also includes programming interfaces for Core OS, Core Services, and Media technologies. EA and Sega were on hand to show games, and Salesforce.com demonstrated a cool interface to its software-as-a-service — all created in a matter of weeks. A $100M “iFund” set up by KPCB will help goose this development platform with funding for third-party app development. The touch interface is great for games, and rather than using a thumbpad and buttons, you can steer using the iPhone’s motion sensor, almost like a Nintendo Wii.

Support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, the technology required to synchronize mail, calendar, and other data directly with Microsoft Exchange rather than use third-party gateways or synchronization services, makes the iPhone far more useful in the corporate world — in some ways easier to use to grab corporate email than using a lonely Mac in a sea of PCs. IT departments want the remote wipe/lock and on-device data encryption features that secure iPhones to the corporate IT world. Apple is also enhancing the VPN capabilities with support for Cisco IPsec and two-factor authentication, certificates, and identities. And iPhones can finally receive push email, so that you get a new message almost as soon as it is sent without having to manually poll the server or wait for the iPhone to poll it automatically (usually at 15-minute intervals). This feature, actually pioneered by RIM, when combined with the above communication features, makes the iPhone an attractive Blackberry replacement that also, by the way, includes an iPod. The one major drawback is that large enterprises may not want to commit to AT&T if they use other carriers.

While there are some complaints that Apple is doing to apps what it did to music — monopolize sales through one channel, the online store — the smooth operation of the store, and the ready-made audience of iPhone users more than makes up for it. The 30% Apple charges (you can set your own price on your app) is reasonable. Besides, free apps can be distributed through the store at no charge, and I expect this promotional business to heat up, with lots of free content-infused apps.

At the same time as the SDK announcement, but having nothing to do with it, the BBC launched its iPlayer for the iPhone and iPod touch that plays streaming video from the BBC for free. It’s strictly a WiFi service, so it requires the iPhone to be within WiFi range. The quality in video and audio is excellent — the video is 400Kb/second H.264, while audio runs as a 116Kb/second AAC stream. Check it out here.

Want to bet against the iPhone now? Good luck with that.

I’m writing this as Steve Jobs delivers his keynote address at Macworld Expo (see Gizmodo or Engadget for live coverage).

Apple’s theme of “Something in the air” is of course based on the Thunderclap Newman song, “Something in the Air” which appeared on the soundtracks of at least two influential 1960s movies, The Strawberry Statement and Easy Rider.

You can find versions on iTunes, such as the Thunderclap Newman original version (from the Easy Rider album), a new version by the band recorded in 2007 with Zoot Money, and the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers cover version.

The association with revolution is obvious, but Apple’s intent is to showcase wireless technology and its uses in media — particularly Apple TV. Again by making the most of wireless technology, its iTunes store, the iPod connectivity and an eye-popping, simple to use interface, Apple has become the most important challenger to the established video-on-demand players, offering movie rentals through iTunes and directly to your Apple TV. You don’t need to sync with your computer to play what you obtain through Apple TV, but you can sync back to your computer after you’ve purchased something. Very cool.

The MacBook Air is, according to Jobs, the world’s thinnest notebook computer. It is extremely thin and lightweight, a major innovation in notebook design (it can fit inside a manila envelope). Besides a full keyboard it also includes built-in multi-touch gesture support with its generous trackpad, supporting all new gestures, and a built-in iSight camera. The optional USB optical drive fits in with Jobs’ vision that these drives will one day be obsolete as we get more of our software, tunes, videos, and movies online. With all these innovations Apple is able to increase battery life to five hours.

This is a full MacBook Pro for $1,799 with the Intel 1.2 GHz Core 2 Duo processor, and since it also runs Windows as well as Leopard (OS X), it is by far the best notebook computer on the market — when it gets on the market (in two weeks, according to Apple). Together with Time Capsule, the wireless backup device that combines AirPort with a large capacity hard drive, Apple is clearly on a roll. I am ready to plunk money down for the MacBook Air and the new Apple TV.

With Macworld Expo in San Francisco approaching, the rumor mill is working overtime along with developers feverishly constructing demos and beta versions of new applications. One wonders when the expo folks will change its name to Apple Expo — I think by next year. The show covers far more than Mac, and given recent rumors of Windows XP applications running on OS X without emulation — unhindered, side-by-side with Mac apps — the show will need a name change. Besides, the majority of new products and services will be for the iPod and iPhone. You’ll see far more sophisticated iPod-automobile interfaces, lots of cool headphones and gadgets, outstanding iPhone and iPod touch apps in beta, and a mushrooming industry of Web-based apps, some labeled “Web 2.0″ and some “Software-as-a-Service” but mostly built with Ajax tools.

There is no doubt that Apple has several important new products lined up for 2008. A next-generation iPhone with 3G capability is nearly guaranteed by June, while analysts also think a new Apple TV is in the works that will include an LCD (display). The sexiest rumor of all is the Mac Tablet or iTablet, which according to some is supposed to be a much larger version of the iPod touch that runs OS X in some form, and according to others is a full-blown Mac in tablet form. An iTablet form factor with a touch interface would killer as a video player as well as an ultra-portable computer. Add a built-in camera you’d have a device capable of portable video communication. It would also be a far, far better electronic book reader than the Amazon Kindle.

Apple TV truly does need a boost, as Apple has sold about 800,000 units, a bit shy of analysts’ projections of one million. Of course, compared to TiVO and other third-party video devices, that’s pretty good, but Apple needs a winner in this category. Apple TV should be capable of working with iTunes and a subscription model for TV shows and movies — media that is mostly watched once. You should be able to dial up a show or movie directly from Apple TV, after having set up a subscription service via iTunes.

As for tablets and other Apple devices, Robert X. Cringely offers a must-read article about Apple’s strategy with the iPhone and possible future devices (including an iTablet) that pins its hopes on WebKit, an Open Source Web browser engine that underlies Apple’s Safari on OS X, Windows, the iPhone, and the iPod touch. Incidentally, the article also explains why you won’t see Flash on your iPhone real soon — Apple would rather see the WebKit (and its underlying standard, KHTML) evolve as a standard for rendering Web pages on all sorts of devices, and would rather promote Ajax for development than either Flash or Java. Ironically, Apple is using Open Source to gain some measure of control over mobile Web rendering, preempting Java and doing an end-run around the proprietary Flash technology.

The software development kit (SDK) for the iPhone and iPod touch is coming in Feb. 2008. Why the wait? On the one hand, Steve Jobs seems to plan these announcements well in advance, to give the press something to chew on every month — like the iPhone price cut. Apple always wanted third-party development, but the iPhone — as market leader in its own class of device — is a huge fat target for viruses and malware, and Apple needed to shake it out first. Apple knocked out all the “jailbreak” hacks and unauthorized applications with software updates, and I’m sure this helped the company immensely in learning how to deal with intruders. One thing is certain: Apple-authorized third-party applications won’t break your iPhone’s service with AT&T.

There is obvious pent-up developer energy waiting to be unleashed on the iPhone/iPod touch platform. Some cool apps are already in beta, such as ProRemote Pro Tools Controller, which turns an iPhone or  iPod touch into a wireless controller for Pro Tools LE — the video shows someone touching and flicking mixer controls on the iPhone as the Pro Tools LE changes on the Mac screen. Musicians can control the board levels from inside the playing area or sound booth. The innovative use of the touch interface will inspire all kinds of new apps. If you want to jump on this bandwagon, learn how to use WebKit, KHTML, and Ajax development tools.

You want wheat toast, but you have to order a chicken-salad sandwich to get it. So it is with iTunes and the iPod: there many things you can’t do, as they break some rules. But here are five easy pieces for the Mac, five easy pieces for Windows, and a few for the road, that won’t leave you holding your iPod between your knees.

For Mac

Awaken (version 3.1.5, $12.95) brings some of that wonderful iPod functionality to your Mac (for Mac OS X 10.3.9 or newer, and iTunes v6.0 or newer) — an alarm clock that wakes you up to your iTunes music, or any of the built-in alarm sounds. You can also fall asleep listening to your music with the built in sleep timer.

VoodooPad from flyingmeat, for OS X only, offers hypertext notepadding that can export to your iPod’s Notes section. Built like a wiki, VoodooPad lets you save linked pages as Word documents, Rich Text Format files, or HTML to view wiki in a web browser. Once inside iPod Notes, VoodooPad linked words show up for you to click on, and you can go from page to page just like you were using VoodooPad, only with an iPod scroll wheel instead of a mouse.

iPodDisk for OS X is described as “just another tool that enables you to copy your own music from your iPod” but what it actually does is make your iPod act like an iDisk drive, so that other applications to access it to copy files and music. You can browse, drag from, or even play music directly on the drive, with a convenient hierarchy structure well organized by artists and albums. Rather than burden the program with features such as search, the developer integrated it with Finder so that Spotlight works fine for searching. You can even use command-line tools.

Audiobook Builder v1.0.7 for Mac OS X from Splasm Software is a $9.95 alternative for importing audio book CDs (or any audio files) and converting them to be recognizable in iTunes as audiobooks so that they are stored in the proper Audiobook section and are easy to find. It lets you join audio files, set chapter stops, and save book construction projects.

TiVoDecode Manager (version 2.1, free) for Mac OS X rivals the commercial Toast 8 Titanium in offering one-click transfer and conversion of TiVo videos into iPod- and iTunes-ready files. It can find your TiVo on a home network, and can create 640×480 videos in MPEG-4 format that transfer properly to the iPod. However, it does not do H.264 encoding.

For Windows

Soundcrank is a free program for Windows (Mac OS X coming soon) that helps you find album artwork and lyrics for your iTunes library and see what other Soundcrank friends are listening to in iTunes.

The winamp ipod plugin (aka ml_ipod) is a plugin for Winamp (for Windows) that lets you manage your iPod from within the winamp media library. It supports all models of iPods, from the classic first generation to the iPod mini, photo, nano and shuffle. Since iPod support is built into Winamp version 5.2 and newer, ml_ipod is an alternative for this built-in iPod support lacking.

EphPod (freeware) is a Windows application that can copy music to and from an iPod quickly — it takes under 30 minutes to transfer 1,000 songs to an iPod with a FireWire connection. EphPod supports standard WinAmp (.M3U) playlists, includes playlist creation features, and can synchronize an entire music collection with one click. It also imports Microsoft Outlook contacts and lets you create and edit your own contacts. EphPod can also be used to download the latest news, weather, e-books, and movie listings to an iPod.

XPlay 2 ($29,95m free trial version) unlike other applications for organizing music on your iPod, runs as a system service, integrating your iPod’s music database into Windows Explorer — plug in your iPod and it appears like any other hard drive or storage device. XPlay 2 allows you to use a Mac-formatted or Windows-formatted iPod on your Windows ME, 98SE, 2000, or XP system. Inside the XPlay music folder your songs are arranged just as they are on the screen of the iPod, and you can browse by playlist, albums, artists, genres, composers and songs. You can drag-and-drop songs from your PC to the XPlay Music folder to copy them to your iPod, and copy music files from your iPod to your PC.

TVHarmony AutoPilot (freeware) can keep track of what’s on your TiVo and automatically download shows you are interested in. You can also download and convert videos from YouTube and automatically convert videos into formats for iPods, PSPs, Palm and PocketPC devices, video capable mobile phones, XBox 360s, and Linux devices like the Neuros and GP2X. It requires a networked Tivo with TivoToGo capability, at least 10GB of hard drive space, a P4 or equivalent CPU, and Windows 2000 or Windows XP.

One More for the Road

YamiPod (Yet Another Manager for iPod, version 1.7b3, freeware) lets you copy music files freely from your iPod to your computer and vice-versa. It can copy playlists, RSS news feeds, and podcasts, and synchronize your iPod with computers running Mac OS X, Windows, or Linux. You can run it directly from your iPod.

Lots of free stuff is available in the iTunes Store but Apple only highlights the most recent offerings. Most of the older stuff is still there — a treasure trove of free music and other stuff. Check out Get Free iTunes Store Downloads for links into the store.

A report from Greenpeace hit the press recently (Apple Faces Legal Threat Over Toxic iPhone is just one of many articles) claiming the iPhone contains many toxic materials. Buried in the detailed reports are tests that indicate there may be some toxic materials in Apple’s earbud cables, but certainly not enough to cause any alarm. It turns out that many of these materials are found in everyday food packaging and consumer products. However, the Greenpeace report is right in pointing out that Nokia and other manufacturers have taken steps to or already have eliminated such hazardous materials as vinyl plastics and brominated flame retardants.

Just yesterday (as reported in Macworld) a chemical industry group came to Apple’s defense, claiming the report is unfair. The group noted that the brominated flame retardants used in the iPhone are commonly used in electronics products from all manufacturers, as they provide a high level of fire safety — essential in devices like laptops in which batteries randomly catch fire.

While it’s a true story that an iPod set a man’s pants on fire, I’ve had an iPhone in my pants for months now, and I can prove that I’m not sterile and have no sexual dysfunctions, but we won’t get into that. Fact is, there are plenty of dangerous substances around us every day. Scientists studying indoor exposures are a lot more concerned about formaldehydes from cleaning products than something like this. Even peanut butter has a potent cancer agent, aflatoxin. And you get far more toxic dioxin from a grass fire than from a bonfire of earbuds — though I don’t recommend smoking them.

What this story illustrates is how hysterical, and hysterically funny, people can be when confronted with a product they don’t like that is as successful as the iPod and iPhone. On the one hand, you can’t get enough of the press coverage that accompanies your attack on the popular product. On the other hand, the press coverage helps sell more product. It’s frustrating to be a curmudgeon!

The blog blather was rich and foamy last week as Apple introduced a new generation of iPod models on Sept. 5, 2007, with attractive enclosures and easier-to-use controls, and then hacked the price of the 8GB iPhone from $599 to $399. Those of us who paid $599 for the first two months after its introduction were paying attention, and the reaction ranged from outrage to blissful acceptance. The net result was more press coverage for Apple than any company could ever achieve by simply releasing new products.

So Steve Jobs wrote an open letter to all iPhone customers, offering a $100 rebate for those who bought one at $599. As Jobs explains, “This is life in the technology lane. If you always wait for the next price cut or to buy the new improved model, you’ll never buy any technology product because there is always something better and less expensive on the horizon.”

I couldn’t agree more. I have a shed filled with “antique” computers and peripherals to prove it. I spent a fortune on technology over the last 30 years, and so what? You wouldn’t be reading this if you weren’t willing to shell out the big bucks for the best toys.

And yet, one wonders how much Jobs is getting away with. $100 million in extra profit from the 500,000 or so iPhones sold at the higher price, according to Robert X. Cringely. “It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a thoughtless mistake. It was a calculated and tightly scripted exercise in marketing and ego gratification.” Steve Jobs waited until the end of this speech on Sept. 5, where controversy gets its biggest bang, to announce the price cut. As Cringely explains it, Jobs knew it would be disruptive and controversial, but wanted to do it anyway to stimulate demand. Jobs was ready to address the outrage with the $100 rebate, essentially splitting the difference with Apple’s early adopter customers and pocketing half of this extra profit ($50M).

If so, then Apple is doing right by its stockholders to “go for it” (in the words of Steve Jobs), and Jobs is shedding an old, obsolete perception of him as not being profit-motivated. I take this as good news — that Apple is ready to fully engage the consumer electronics industry. There is great price sensitivity in electronics. The price cut enabled Apple to hit its stated goal of 1 million iPhones sold a few weeks earlier than expected (there was a considerable surge after the price cut). Apple has more clout to get better pricing from parts suppliers, driving down the cost. The company has been more successful than others in meeting demand at a time when parts shortages plague other manufacturers.

Lost in the noise about the price cut was the lack of any real reason to buy an iPod touch — yet. While it’s true that Wi-Fi and Safari turn the iPod into an innovative personal internet device as well as media player, and with appropriate Web 2.0 applications and Web services, the device can act as your travel computer, all this is true of the iPhone also… and the iPhone phones home. The iPod touch model is the foundation for future iPods, but its first generation will certainly not cannibalize sales of the iPhone. And that’s probably a good thing, as consumer electronics companies need to put forward a substantial product line with plenty of innovation.

We expect a pioneering consumer electronics company to continually introduce innovative and useful products. Compare Apple to Sony, the former heavyweight champion in consumer electronics and the inventor of portable music players. While Apple rolls out the best lineup of consumer products that the company has ever produced in time for the holiday season, Sony is toying with the Rolly, a completely unnecessary palm-size, egg-shaped digital music player that rolls, swivels, flaps its ends and flashes colorful lights in time to music (according to John Batteiger in the S.F. Examiner’s Tech Chronicles). Sony, good luck with that.

After two months of Apple iPhone bliss, no glitches. Sales are currently exceeding Apple’s expectations, according to reports. And more innovations are coming, such as the Audi car interface for iPhones. The Web browsing and online services work faster where WiFi is available, so I regularly stop outside a Starbucks (where I can use my T-Mobile WiFi account) to check email, browse the Web, etc. As I don’t need a table or outlet, I don’t need to buy coffee and I can even stay outside. Besides, free WiFi is available in lots of places including many hotel lobbies and even in the S.F. MUNI subway under Market St. Drive-by WiFi is nearly automatic with unprotected WiFi nets or free services.

So don’t pay much attention to the speculation that the iPhone is not living up to expectations. By comparison, today’s crop of cell phones and smart phones look and feel like clumsy contraptions from a different era, with inscrutable menus and features that take to long to figure out how to use properly. Compared to state-of-the-art smart phones that cost the same or even more (see this review by Peter Svensson of AP and reviews in “Shut Up and Play Your iPhone, Volume 2“), the iPhone holds up well in features and in price (and even in AT&T’s service, so far the only one to work with the iPhone without hacking it). But the iPhone takes a giant leap further in interface and design; opening a new path, so to speak, to a finer universe where everything will work better. Like the original Macintosh that kick-started the graphical computing industry (including Windows). Like the iPod and iTunes combination that rocked the music world.

The Web 2.0 sites and services I use most work fine on the iPhone, and I can use pop-up and drop-down menus on sites with ease and grace. The exception is Google Docs — I can edit in this comment from my iPhone using Google Docs in HTML edit mode, but I can’t edit or write very well. However, my WordPress blogs are easier to access and I can write and post blogs from the iPhone. Using a Web service in Safari on the iPhone for this is better than using the iPhone’s Notes feature, because in Safari you can tilt the iPhone to get landscape view for your display and also your keyboard — which makes the keyboard wider easier to use.

Gripes aside, I still see the iPhone as a platform and capable of leading the portable device industry into new realms and riches. And as any device that can run the game DOOM is considered a platform, the iPhone is hereby annointed with a DOOM proof-of-concept. Of course you can already play online games — check out PopCap’s Bejeweled.

Have you looked up from your iPhone long enough to notice how the world has changed?

Activation at last…

iPhone sales are well ahead of expectations. More rumors are swirling about a wide-screen, multi-touch iPod in August (using Wintek touchscreen panels), with more memory and integrated Wi-Fi, and even with the capability to share data with other iPods and iPhones in the immediate vicinity wirelessly (as well as yet another rumor of a Yellow Submarine iPod loaded with Beatles tracks). Analysts are struggling with predictions of an “iPhone nano” vs. additional 3G capability by the end of this year. All this buzz is fueling an unprecedented increase in Apple’s stock price.

And it seems all well deserved, because, surveys tell us, people love their iPhones. Apple has extended its reach — three of 10 buyers were first-time Apple customers, and 40% had never before bought an iPod.

Of course the iPhone lacks important features and is already in dire need of improvement. Longer battery life is high on everyone’s list, but check out “25 things wrong with the iPhone” in the Apple iPhone Review. I would add to this list the inability to run Google Docs, which I use to write this blog — which means I can’t write a blog entry on my iPhone unless I use the post-by-email feature of WordPress. The iPhone version of Safari doesn’t support Java on the client side, but it does support Ajax, which is widely used now for Web 2.0 development. It also doesn’t support Flash (QuickTime is fine for movies but doesn’t provide the interactive features of Flash). My “blidgets” (blog widgets) on my blogs don’t appear on the iPhone display. But there are developers who would argue that Safari has one of the best canvas implementations of any browser — allowing you to draw arbitrary images using JavaScript and obviating the need for Flash and Java.

While these camps argue, the list of new iPhone widgets and applications is growing exponentially (I’m checking out the MuniTime Web service with transit info for San Francisco, and considering buying the iPhoneDrive application to copy files to an from my iPhone). Enterprising bloggers and reporters are already tearing apart their iPhones and discovering secret test codes. I expect major improvements to occur this year and be available by download directly to the device. Gripes aside, I still see the iPhone as a platform despite the fact that this first version is not quite complete.

In line at the Apple Store in San Francisco

It’s hard not to like something you waited in line for — in my case, six hours at the San Francisco Apple Store. Several enterprising individuals and at least one disreputable one were selling their seats, but no one was buying. The Apple Store processed us quickly and we were off into the night beaming with pride, oblivious to the fact that folks were showing up at 11 p.m. and getting their iPhones without having to wait in line. We even stayed up most of the night hoping that the automatic activation would finish (the servers were overloaded). But it was the adventure itself that was rewarding — meeting people in line, sharing food and good humor, spotting each other for coffee and bio breaks. We deserved our iPhones and we all sincerely want them to be all that they can be. Apple has pushed marketing to a new benchmark, but so what? As Randy Newman sang about L.A., “We love it!”.