“[They] are using the tablet-style computer for tasks as varied as accessing work e-mail, approving shipping orders, and calling up on-the-spot auto-finance options.”

It takes time to change things, but now that Apple is bigger than Microsoft, one has to wonder how long corporate will continue to cling to the underdog.

“Apple makes $3B of profit from its iPhone while HP takes in a mere $500M on its PCs—that’s a 6x difference. The Center of Money has shifted.”

HP is one of the leaders in computer manufacturing, yet for all their expertise, they have to be pretty surprised how fast the center shifted.

“If the iPhone didn’t exist, I would have the Nexus One in my pocket right now—but then again, if the iPhone didn’t exist, the Nexus One wouldn’t either.”

He talks about how a Nexus One is good for folks that like to tinker, tweak, and modify their devices, but warns that it comes at a significant cost to its usability. If you want something that just works (and you don’t want to hack it “within an inch of its life”) then iPhone is the one for you.

[via Marco]

—

Do you ever wonder whether you’d be better off walking instead of taking the bus? This app will help you answer that question.

Fine tune your personal walking speed and your city’s bus speed for the most accurate Walk or Bus recommendation.

Measure by kilometers, miles, or by configurable city block sizes Receive helpful feedback: “at a brisk pace you will get there 4 minutes faster than the bus”

Ideation: Chris Mueller & Dana Boyd
Graphics: Trevor Brown
Coding: Peter Edstrom
Contact: walkorbus@edstrom.net
Twitter: @walkorbus

No camera? How will we do video chat?

Good entry price point of $499, but I’m irritated that I can’t use my $30/month iPhone internet on this thing. You want me to pay for internet per device? Seriously? Where is the Kindle internet model where it comes with free internet for life?

I can totally see myself sitting down to read a nice long book with the iBooks app. But I’m still skeptical I’ll buy many books this way — $15 for a new book, and no re-sell or lending capability? I don’t mind that with music, but I rarely read books more than once and want to be able to pass the book on when I’m done.

I feel bad for Kindle owners. Given the attention this thing is getting, the screen-looks-like-paper feature was an overrated (but necessary?) step to advance the art of eBooks. Sorry Amazon. Thanks for your efforts. Good luck with your ePaper initiatives – the rest of us will be happy with color alternatives.

The new apps look amazing. Especially the calendar program. And the iWorks apps. Can’t wait to try them out.

Interesting that Apple made their own “Apple A4” chip instead of putting an Intel chip into the device. I wonder what this means for the future of other Apple devices.

Oh yea, and the iPad name is horrible. Please Apple, please. Give up on the iEverything name. The original iMac was what? 1998? This is a tired, dull, and not-what-we-expect-from-a-leading-company-like-yourself name. Canvas would have been so much better. Or Slate. Or just “Apple Tablet”. iPad? iPad?!?

I’m an Apple fanboy to be sure, but what exactly can’t the iPhone do?

“The Nexus One seems like a nice enough phone, but it’s nothing revolutionary (it’s got a trackball, for God’s sake). Everyone is still operating inside the same box that Apple defined three years ago.”

On one hand, I’m glad to see some competition for Apple. But I don’t know that most consumers can see what’s happening: Google is playing the Microsoft game. Copy Apple as closely as possible and as quickly as possible. Android will always be a second-rate smartphone (or super-smartphone).

Google’s Android phone operating system will rearrange the icons, change the colors, and maybe even do a couple unexpected things. But the genius at Apple is already working on the next big thing – not trying to copy their competitors.

With USAA, you can now deposit checks via an iPhone.

Using the built-in camera, just snap a picture of the front and back side of the check, enter the check amount, and click submit. The deposit will clear overnight.

No trips to the bank, no trips to an ATM, and no PayPal fees.

What an amazingly good idea.

“That the iPhone — or specifically its software touchscreen keyboard — does not appeal to everyone is not a problem. Nothing appeals to everyone. Even if you try to make something that appeals to everyone by adding every single clamored-for feature, you wind up with something like Windows that does not appeal to people with a taste for the elegant and refined.”

Well said.

• I like the complete upgrade to their laptop line. The specs on the screens sound impressive.
• Glad that the new OS is only a $29 upgrade, though no single feature is that compelling.
• Safari 4 is awsome. I’ve been using the beta for a while now.
• Looking forward to the iPhone 3.0 free upgrade.
• Absolutely appalled at AT&T for not allowing tethering.
• I could care less about the copy & paste thing, and have yet to understand why people consider this such a “must have” feature.
• Like the idea of a video camera on the go. Impressed that you can do video editing on the new iPhone, and upload straight to youtube. (This will have very interesting side affects that I don’t think we fully appreciate yet.)
• I would quite like the 2-3x performance of the new iPhone too – little things like going to the home screen and popping up the keyboard seem to have a slight lag on my older iphone.
• The digital compass nicely rounds out the GPS capabilities of last year, but I wish the turn-by-turn navigation had been built in.
• The voice control looks nice – especially the “play more songs like this one” bit.
• The lower $99 price is also a good thing for last years model, though I wonder who will be buying that considering the voice+data plan will set you back at least $60 a month anyway (I tend to ignore most of the upfront costs and focus more on the monthly part). Seems like if you are spending $60/month already, a $100 is relatively unimportant – if you can’t afford the new one, you can’t really afford the old one either.

Will I upgrade?

All told, I’ll probably pay for the new OS when it comes out in September, but will hold off on the new iPhone till the one I have becomes unusable.

I’m still on the 1st generation 2g dataplan, and when I upgrade, the 3g dataplan will bump my bill up an extra $10/month. Had the tethering not been blocked by AT&T, it might have been worth it. I love the idea of internet anywhere on my laptop. But for now, I’m looking for ways to reduce, not increase, my internet & phone bills.

“There have really only been two dominant UI metaphors in the short history of desktop computing:

• Keyboard + command line
• Mouse + desktop

A third metaphor, the pen, never really gained much traction. [...]

History then brings us to a fourth metaphor, direct interaction via multitouch, introduced to most people by the iPhone. It’s possibly the biggest new UI approach to hit the mass-market in recent memory.”

He goes on to contemplate the value of the “file system”, a potential direction towards “web apps” and more.  I’ve often wondered where things will go long term. The issue seems to be the ever-efficient keyboard. Despite loving the usability of my iPhone, writing an email is still far more precise and quick on a full sized keyboard.

Where do you think we are going next? More of multitouch? Voice recognition?

[via Daring Fireball]

I definitely agree with that. My iPhone is now almost two years old and it does much more than it did when I first opened its box.

Agreed. Free upgrades. Lots of things from the App Store, and I think it’ll only get better with the upcoming 3.0 software update this summer.

Figure out the absolute least you need to do to implement the idea, do just that, and then polish the hell out of the experience.

I for one, say that is excellent advice for just about anything: from corporate polices, routine procedures, desktop software and web pages – it fits. Don’t be mislead though. This is far from easy. 

Gruber further considers:

You want to get it right because getting it right can make everything easier thereafter. But really, it’s because getting it wrong can be devastating. You might wind up putting thousands of man hours of work into a project that was doomed by a decision that was made in a second at the inception.

Just hold the phone to your ear, wait for the beep, and say what you’re looking for. That’s it. Just talk. Once the App is on, you don’t have to push any buttons to search. [...] And if you’re doing a local search, there’s no need to specify where you are because Google Mobile App now has Search with My Location. Search for “movie showtimes” or “Mediterranean restaurant” and you’ll automatically see results based on your current location.

All made possible by the iPhone’s built in GPS, accelerometer, and proximity sensors. As Tim O’Reilly astutely points out:

Future applications will surprise us by using them in new ways, and in new combinations; future devices will provide richer and richer arrays of senses (yes, senses, not just sensors) for paying attention to what we want.

• iPhone earns highest satisfaction score among businesspeople
• NPD Group reports iPhone 3G is now the top-selling consumer mobile phone in the U.S. – ending Razr’s 3-year run. [via ars technica, Daring Fireball]

• The iPhone is selling better than Blackberry (allegedly its primary competitor)
• Apple is now the worlds third-largest cellphone maker (trailing only Nokia and Samsung)
• Apple quarterly results analysis via Daring Fireball.

Who would think you could get to that scale – having never built a cell phone till a skant 15 months previously? At 10 million units sold in 2008, maybe this is just a fad.

My prediction remains the same: Apple will take over the cell phone market the way it did with the mp3 player market (80% of all mp3 players are iPods).

Each of these features is of course available in devices other than the iPhone. A checklist of the iPhone’s features is not, in and of itself, impressive. Some competing devices, in fact, offer all the same fundamental features of the iPhone. The difference is in the overall experience.

… we have no plans to publish future Windows Mobile issues. [...] Our focus in 2009 will be the four scheduled iPhone Life issues, which we will publish under the umbrella title of Smartphone Magazine. 

A single magazine is no definitive way to tell what an industry is doing, but it certainly gives you pause as to the future of Windows Mobile.

Apple’s iPhone is weaker in messaging than the more mature BlackBerry platform, but stronger everywhere else, with a desktop class standards-based web browser (providing access to corporate IT web apps), advanced iPod media playback features, and an integrated store featuring everything from games to media to productivity apps. It will be much easier for Apple to match RIM’s messaging features [...] than for RIM to clean up the rest of its OS, which currently just stinks.

Especially considering that the iPhone natively supports Microsoft Exchange (ie, Outlook). Even Blackberries don’t integrate directly – they need the separate (and expensive) Blackberry Enterprise Server.

If you are interested and have time, I’d recommend the 4-page read.