Geek News - Macworld 2007

I picked a good week to return from holidays it would seem.

Anyone even vaguely jacked in would know that the big hype over the last few days has been the Apple iPhone (not to be confused with the pre-emptive Linksys iPhone – but more on that later). Sexy, sleek, shiny, just begging to be touched, the long-rumoured iPhone has finally arrived (subject to US FCC approval which is not likely to be forthcoming before June 2007).

Picture courtesy of Apple, Inc

The tech specs are readily available and have been repeated ad infinitum so I don’t need to repeat them in detail here. Notable features though are its iPod-in-a-phone nature (with Nano-like capacities of 4 and 8 gigs), a honking big “multi-touch” widescreen, a single hardware button, runs on a fully featured OSX, Wi-Fi (although it apparently doesn’t sync via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth but through plain ol’ USB – however, running on OSX should lead to delicious opportunities for VOIP usage in wireless hotspots) and as it is a GSM phone, no 3G (yet).

There have been the usual round of complaints including capacity (4 and 8 GB seems at least equal to, if not more than, anything else on the market), battery life (5 hours talk time seems about right to me, as does 16 hours music playback – both figures would appear to dump all over the appalling battery life of my Motorola V3x which is admittedly a 3G phone), only a 2 MP camera and the fact that it’s an Apple product.

To me, the biggest attraction of an iPhone is interoperability. If my iPod is anything to go by, the iPhone should integrate very smoothly with iTunes, making it easy to sync contacts, calendar, music, video (that multi-touch widescreen looks tasty) and, if you’re bored, be fun to make phone calls on, too. For what it’s worth, if Apple nails the sync, I think everything else will become secondary. I wish my Moto would sync properly :( My no-brainer prediction is that when the iPhone handsets actually hit the shelves, an iTunes 8 will be launched, complete with beefed up productivity components. You read it here first…

Anyway, launch dates for the iPhone are likely to be June/July 2007 for the US with a scheduled Q4 2007 release for Europe and a 2008 release for Asia. Apparently by this time, the iPhone will also have 3G but I have only seen this information coming from unnamed “Apple sources” (hmm, apple sauces *drool*), I’ll take that with a grain of salt. I’ll wait and see if Australia is included with the technically similar European networks or the geographically similar Asian region.

The other big news from Macworld was the launch of the AppleTV, formerly known as iTV. With an Intel processor, 40GB hard drive, “draft n” wireless and HDMI, it looks smooth. In the event I ever own a Mac and a widescreen TV (the tech specs only state that it supports a 16:9 ratio), I’m right on the AppleTV train. For the less geeky, “draft n” is the proposed next standard in wireless – it’s fast enough to be able to stream HD video content, but the standard has yet to be ratified. It might seem that Apple is taking a bit of a punt on this, but all the new Intel Macs have 802.11n wireless. Unlikely as it might be, if the draft n standard is changed, AppleTV will still work with Macs so they’re still pretty much ahead of the game.

Picture courtesy of Apple, Inc





Something else that isn’t gaining much attention is that Apple have officially changed their name from Apple Computers, Inc to just plain old Apple, Inc, in recognition of the fact that these days “pure” computers forms only one part of their growing business. Time will tell if this will lead to further difficulties in the already strained relationship between Apple, Inc and Apple Records.

Finally, as something of an aside, Cisco (owners of the Linksys brand) is suing Apple for use of their trademark. As (in)famously reported on Gizmodo, Cisco launched their iPhone under the Linksys brand in late December 2006, which is their right given they’ve owned the rights to that name in the US since 2000 (although it’s been reported that Apple own the rights to iPhone in Australia and the UK and have done so since 2002). Hours after Apple’s launch, Cisco issued a press release saying they had been in talks with Apple for quite a while about the usage of the name and that an agreement would be forthcoming as soon as some final details could be agreed to. The following day Cisco announced they were suing Apple.

I wonder who lied to whom?