Articles by Mike Overbo
One of the things that Jobs really was intent on talking about throughout the D5 conference is what happens to computers and gadgets in what he called the Post-PC era. That’s not to say that the PC, as in personal computer, is going away. Far from it; it’s still necessary to function as a media center, digital hub, or media entertainment center. All of those gadgets in your drawer, they have to sync to something.
Interestingly, Steve Jobs revealed that the Google Maps software client was programmed by Apple, not Google as I had previously assumed. Perhaps not surprisingly, Steve thinks it is a much better client than the versions released on other platforms (such as Palm, MS Windows Mobile, Java, etc).
I love Google Maps, I use it on my computer, in a browser. But when we were doing the iPhone, we thought “wouldn’t it be great to have maps on the iPhone.” So we called up Google and they had done a few client apps in Java on some phones, they had an API that we worked with them a little on, and we ended up writing a client app for those APIs, and they would provide the backend service. And the app we were able to write, since we’re pretty reasonable at writing apps, blows away any Google Maps client, just blows it away. Same set of data coming off the server, but the experience you have using it is unbelievable, way better than a computer. Just in a different league than what they’ve used in a client…
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Walt Mossberg’s All Things Digital, aka D5, has posted video of the Gates and Jobs fireside chat. It’s unfortunately in 9 chunks of FLV; there’s no stream, no MOV or WMV that you can download of the entire event. That shouldn’t stop you, however, as the chat is excellent. Jobs and Gates are relaxed, affable, and make jokes throughout, and it’s frankly great to watch both of them. They talk openly about the mobile space, where “post-pc era devices” (Jobs’ term for devices like Zunes, iPods, GPS, and other catch-all convergence or divergence devices) are headed. It’s an investment of time — roughly an hour — worth its weight in gold.
One of the best parts, for me, is that Jobs confirmed they’re still working on 3rd party applications for the iPhone, how to do it right; how to do it without making the device crash twice a day. A more in-depth article should follow this afternoon or evening.
In any regard, D5 has posted a highlight reel, but I’d personally recommend just watching the individual flash videos. Read on for the links.
iTunes 7.2 is available, and with it comes iTunes Plus, song tracks that you can purchase for a little more money that have more audio quality and no DRM. EMI’s entire catalog should be available, and Jobs predicted at D5 that the independent labels are clamoring to get on board as well. Jobs predicts that about half of the catalog at the iTunes Store should be available DRM-free by the end of the calendar year. Finally, you can play iTunes Store purchases on your Zune.
Steve Jobs was at Walt Mossberg’s All Things Digital conference, also known as D5, and there’s a bunch of news. There’s a good video interview of Jobs by Mossberg, but there are other tidbits from the conference that I’ll be posting throughout the day.
According to Gizmodo, the iPhone data plan could be $30. AT&T’s current standard EDGE data plan is $20 per month.
It used to be that no Macworld or WWDC Jobs keynote was complete without John Mayer playing at the end of it; he was basically the ‘fat lady’ punctuation at the end. It was the same at January’s intro of the iPhone, which was no surprise to me. Well, it looks like Mayer has jumped the ship for Blackberry. If you ask me, that’s kind of like boarding the Titanic just as the iceberg comes into full view. But hey, RIM is a sponsor of his tour, and I’m sure Apple will hold no grudges, right? Hahahahaha
Google apparently has more compelling iPhone apps in the works, though information on what they actually do is still scant. Here’s hoping we find out soon, and don’t forget your unlimited data plans.
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are scheduled to have a sit-down where they discuss the state of the industry at Walt Mossberg’s D-Conf. All sorts of high-rolling things are going to be going on there — Jeff Hawkins will unleash his third arm, giving the keynote tech talk, if you will; Steve Jobs and Bill Gates will do a sit-down, and chat about the industry.
So, there’s a lot of press out there that says there’s likely to be a smackdown between the two; I don’t think that’s too likely, but it will give some valuable insight to how the two of them operate and where they think the industry will go. Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather have the smackdown, which is why this makes me laugh.
