I, along with another gazillion people, listened/watched with great interest to the keynote from Apple's World Wide Developer Conference on Monday. There, Apple SVP Phil Schiller went through various product announcements, including the much anticipated iPhone 3GS and the latest incarnation of the iPhone operating system - now up to version 3.0. What never ceases to amaze me is how people fall over each other raving about every single improvement Apple makes in any product. Am I the only one who was underwhelmed with the iPhone annoucements? Am I the only one who thinks we need to Stop the insanity? [Editor's note: Have I lost my mind that I am making reference to Susan Powter???]
In fact, much of what we saw on Monday was not new from an OS perspective, because we saw most of it at the Pre-view [get it ;-)] event. Now there were some new features that were also announced, and to me I think the most interesting additions were the Find my iPhone and remote wipe features.
Look even at the revolutionary new design of the 3GS (note sarcasm). Everybody is all excited - the device is going to open email twice as fast as before. You now have autofocus on your 3 megapixel camera. Yippie ki yay. However, most of the other features that were announced for the device (beyond revolutionary things such as MMS and copy/paste) are really for developers. If ANY other company were to announce with such great fanfare such an "improved" device, they would be mocked. However, Apple, who can do NO wrong, is somehow praised. In fairness, the upgrade to 7.2 Mbps HSDPA is sweet.
So I installed the GM version of the new OS on my spare iPhone. I noticed almost no difference. Now, in all seriousness and fairness, I consider that as much a good thing as I do a bad thing. First of all, the upgrade was a piece of cake and absolutely painless. Any company that makes an OS can/should learn from how Apple did this firmware update. Also, the OS still feels quite snappy on my "old" hardware. That's also one heck of an accomplishment. Some other things about the OS:
- So now I have universal search - OK, I guess that's cool. Whatever.
- I can now write email in landscape more - cool, less typos.
- I now have access to 50,000 apps. Should I point out that that's almost 49,000 more than I can get on my BlackBerry and more than 49,950 more than I can get on the Pre that I am still lusting for? Oh wait. I forgot. Having browsed the iPhone App Store extensively, I'm pretty sure 49,990 of the 50,000 are of NO interest to me. Quantity does NOT mean quality people. (One great exception is the new TomTom application - THAT looks awesome.)
- I love how I still can't have a custom tone for notifications such as SMS, MMS (oh wait, still can't do that with AT&T), or email.
- I also love how I can't delete the clock, stocks, calculator or weather apps. Thanks Apple for making me waste space on my device.
- Battery life FEELS no different. We'll have to wait and see.
So, net net, I'm not sure what there is to get excited about. The iPhone 3GS is a wonderfully evolutionary upgrade...as is iPhone OS 3.0. And yet, people are going Elvis/Beatles crazy. One of these days, gravity will kick in - and someone will eventually take Apple down from the summit.
Someone I was talking to yesterday pointed out however that this is evolutionary only because Apple got so much of it right in the first place. Very fair point. The iPhone is an amazing device overall. No question about it. However, again, any other company would probably have gotten lynched for such little innovation.
I'm not gonna get on my "other" soap box about how the device is STILL not enterprise friendly. I have done that enough times on this blog and in other areas.
Let's just have a reality check people and stop the insanity. Maybe Susan Powter can make a comeback by doing motivational speeches for mobility companies....
