Not so sure about the iPhone anymore

While the PC and Mac guys depicted in Apple's television commercials are caricatures of America's desktop dichotomy, the stereotype that Windows is for work and Mac [is for fun stuff] seems poised to strengthen when we look at Windows Mobile 6 and the upcoming slimmed down OS X for iPhone. This is at least in part because they inherit the best from their parents with Windows Mobile 6 expressing a stronger synergy with Microsoft Exchange and Office and Apple with iTunes, Mail, Calendar, Address Book, etc.

While Apple's iPod has been long-capable of running more powerful applications than music playback, they have focused on what what's essential to an MP3 player, even deferring video playback until being able to offer an unprecedented experience (i.e. being able to download network TV shows via iTunes). They've done a great job resisting convergence for the sake of convergence. Microsoft had to learn the hard way since bringing the Windows 95 experience to the your hand in the form of Windows CE 1.0. Since then, they've gotten rid of the keyboard, redesigned the interface, gotten rid of the touch screen [(in the successful 'Standard' edition)], then brought the keyboard back, taking years to gain a market dominant position over Palm. Getting the right balance has not been easy. This is certainly proof that convergence is not wrong, but takes serious innovation. Palm Pilot's "we don't need color" approach and Steve Jobs' assertion that "video is a passive experience" are clearly no longer relevant considering Apple's Widescreen iPod of an iPhone and that the last monochrome Palm handheld was a discount stocking stuffer several holiday seasons ago.

Windows Mobile 6 stands to be both a winner and a loser in the mobile phone market with its three evolved brands, Standard, Classic and Professional (formerly Smartphone, Pocket PC, and Phone Editions). It may lose some of its niche consumer market to iPhone but also reclaim territory previous lost to RIM's Blackberry. RIM started for push-based email where email is sent directly to a Blackberry without the user having to actively check their email. This was achieved through integration with Microsoft's own Exchange email servers. Microsoft's come a long way, finally beating Palm in terms of shipped devices. Growing on the success of the slimmed down Smartphone Edition that ran on cheaper hardware (sans touchscreen), Microsoft is building into version 5 robust Office document editing features previously only available on more expensive Pocket PC and Phone Editions. Cooler computing-intensive (power-hungry) features like opening up a Unix terminal or controlling a Windows desktop with the Terminal Services Client in VGA resolution are still restricted to what is now called Windows Mobile Professional.

At the cost of a larger touch-screen interface and expensive graphics accelerators found on Windows Mobile Pro, Windows Mobile Standard Edition seems to have matured very nicely from an initially dumbed-down version of Windows Mobile developed for mobile phones to really fleshing out to meet the needs of business users and improving security and manageability. Both the new iPhone and Windows Mobile will have a richer browsing and [Exchange-less push-based] email experience than their competitors. Both purport to suport the dynamic content manipulation via AJAX in web-pages. However, it is exactly the ways in which iPhone is so much like Windows Mobile Standard Edition that I'm becoming more wary of it.

These two devices buck the overambitious, all-in-one convergence that had Windows Mobile Professional over-promising and under-delivering. They intend to reinvent the phone by stripping out what was non-essential and perfecting what remained. While Apple's device has seemingly limitless potential and you could argue that it is comparable to a PDA, Apple's closed-system nature restricts third-party developers from making software for the iPhone. This essentially reinforces the concept that the device is less of a converged computing platform than a ... "revolutionary phone, breakthrough internet device, and widescreen iPod".

The iPhone is by far the more ambitious of the two devices because it also promises the best music and video experience. While it's easy enough to throw away (recycle/reuse) both my cell phone and my clearly obsoleted Pocket PC, asking someone to give up their 30GB video-enabled iPod may not be so simple. Of course, we haven't seen the whole story from Apple and maybe there will be a terminal app hiding somewhere on the iPhone enough to convince me to leave behind most of my media content. There it could have been a deliberate decision by Apple to delay third party software development in the beginning to have more control over a very critical stage of the iPhone product line.

References: Windows Mobile Standard Video Demo, Download Squad

Last updated: 1/9/2023 7:56 PM EST (fix broken images)

Keeping promises

This is probably not what you're going to expect. Anyhow, a couple of years ago, I said I'd be doing various things once I got a job and money. I said I'd buy a quieter power supply for my computer, order a copy of Microsoft Office, and get a Powerbook.

How've I done? Well, I did get a new power supply by virtue of getting a new case + power supply for Christmas from my sister two years ago. I didn't get a Powerbook, but I did get an iMac. It would seem as though I'm still missing a copy of Microsoft Office. I've been using the beta version of Office 2007 for a while and on Tuesday, it ships along with Vista. I finished up college using Open Office and I'm somewhat committed to using Google Docs and a future version of iWork. I still get to keep my word, though, since my family gives me an excuse to buy Office.

Now, Microsoft seems to have gotten real and decided to stop calling the ultra cheap Outlook-less and non-upgradeable version the "Stuent and Teacher" Edition, but rather the "Home and Student " Edition. That conveniently makes for guiltless saving without a proxy student (despite our having a student in the family).

You can now get this cheaper home version (without Outlook) for around $130 (check your favorite online retailer)-$150 (in stores). While we're on the topic, if you haven't already seen these, Apple Mac vs. PC ads for the UK [via digg.com].

Pirates of Silicon Valley (the must see classic)

I finally got to watch Pirates of Silicon Valley last week. This and an interview with Guy Kawasaki have vastly improved my opinion of Steve Wozniak. A proper one, unlike the one with Steve Colbert, that interview is both inspiring and humbling by virtue of Wozniak's genius and humanity. Back to the movie, though, you really don't have perspective unless you know the environment under which Wozniak/Jobs and then Gates/Allen won over the industry.

First of all, the Apple I and the II to a lesser extent, were truly revolutionary. Windows is a really direct rip-off from the Macintosh, but the inspiration for that really came from developers at Xerox. Interestingly, the scene where they spill all the beans to Apple engineers shows the Xerox developers really reluctant to share their management-stifled innovations. That leads us to the infamous quote by Bill Gates that Mike shared via a comment:

Get real, would ya? You and I are both like guys who had this rich neighbor - Xerox - who left the door open all the time. And you go sneakin' in to steal a TV set. Only when you get there, you realize that I got there first. I got the loot, Steve! And you're yellin'? 'That's not fair. I wanted to try to steal it first.' You're too late."

The movie starts with Jobs announcing a new partnership with Microsoft after which it goes back to the beginning of why Bill Gates drops out of college and the founding of Apple. It delves deeply into Jobs' personal life (with many scenes of him very much a cult leader) and leads all the way back to the opening scene. Anyhow, the movie is dramatized to the extent that dialogue was imagined and gaps were filled, but as far as I know, those impersonated in the movie don't object to its content.

SOURCES: TUAW [via DIGG] for the Kawasaki interview, DIGG for the Colbert interview