Christopher Herot's Weblog

The iPhone Just May Succeed

When Apple announced the iPhone the world instantly divided into two camps: those who thought the iPhone would redefine the mobile phone and be an immediate success, and those who thought there would be a limited number of people who would shell out $500 for a phone that didn't even use the fastest 3G data, was only available from AT&T, and was hermetically sealed against any applications not personally approved by Steve.  I was leaning towards the latter camp, but after hearing Jobs at D, I have new reasons to think the iPhone may just live up to expectations.  Among them:

• In addition to the three previously announced functions of phone, music player, and web browser, the phone will include Google Maps.  I've been trying out Palm's GPS Navigator recently and am convinced it's the fourth "killer app" and the one that might justify the steep price.
• Jobs stated that the iPhone implementation of maps was not just the usual web browser version but had been reworked to be a true client server app.  Apple's willingness to exploit the power of the platform and, significantly, to say Apple would open up that platform later this year, would make the iPhone an attractive alternative to other high-priced phones.
• Jobs admitted that it might take a new user up to a week to adjust to the touch-screen virtual keyboard.  While that sounds like a lot, Apple has sufficient brand equity to cause its fans to stick with it through this adjustment period, similar to what happened with the IBM Thinkpad's Trackpoint pointing device.
• Never underestimate the power of Apple's industrial design.  See the latest Technology Review for an interesting account of how Apple will often work with manufacturers to push the state of the art of its packaging.

Let's hope Apple lives up to Job's promise to open up the platform for independent software developers.

Philippe Dauman at D

When Chad Hurley and Steve Chen of YouTube were on the stage at D, they responded to a question on copyrights and their relationship with the content owners by repeating the oft-told story about how they will often get a video uploaded by a publicity department and then some time later a cease-and-desist letter from the same company's legal department.  Sure enough, we saw that process in action when Viacom President and CEO, Philippe Dauman took the stage.  His talk was preceded by a hilarious video from Viacom talent Stephen Colbert.  According to D organizers Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, Dauman gave them permission to post the video on their web site.  However, by the time we came back from the break, Walt and Kara announced that the Viacom lawyers had already called and asked them to take it down.

UPDATE:  Kara and Walt said it was all a misunderstanding.  The video is back.

John McCain at D

Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher kicked of this year's D conference with a conversation with John McCain.  They covered a wide range of topics, from why the US lags behind Luxembourg in broadband to the war in Iraq.  McCain came off as principled and informed, although more conservative than much of the audience at this event.  He was concerned about broadband penetration and net neutrality, although we warned against the "unintended consequences" that often follow government intervention.  Walt continued to press, at once point saying that Korea had been ahead of us in broadband for 4 years.  McCain's response was that he would still take the US technology over that of Korea.  I hope he was speaking of technology in general and not broadband in particular.

McCain scored some points with his statement that if he was to run for President, and if he was elected, he would pick the best and brightest people to work in his administration, regardless of party affiliation.  He mentioned John Chambers and Steve Ballmer, both of whom were in the audience.  Walk suggested (jokingly?) that Ballmer be named ambassador to China.

The most tense part of the discussion was about Iraq.  Despite some pointed questioning from the hosts, McCain did not back down from his position that we needed to let the surge do its work.  He did say that we needed to get the Israeli-Palestinian situation under control.  One idea that he had was to form a league of the world's democracies, which might work in parallel with the UN.

A memorable quote:

Every time I've done the right thing everything turned out OK.