Apple has hired Michael Tchao as Vice-President of Product Marketing reporting directly to Senior Vice-President, Phil Schiller. What’s noticeable about this new hire, however, is that Tchao has worked for Apple before — he’s one of the original developers of Apple’s Newton message pad.
Apple, Tchao, and all involved are being mum on what Tchao’s specific roll at Apple will be, but rampant internet speculation has, of course, gone something like “ZOMG! iTablet!”
[New York Times, Photo via http://www.flickr.com/photos/eschipul/]
More a cameo than a starring role, never the less the iPhone and MobileMe feature in Apple’s latest marketing campaign “Get the most from your Mac: Our picks for getting your best pics”:
Let friends download full-resolution images. Enjoy your own online gallery where you can share photos and videos. Let friends download your photos and upload their best shots. You can even publish and view photos directly from your iPhone. Visit a live sample gallery now.
While thin on iPhone overall, it does showcase the incredible ecosystem Apple has plugged the iPhone into, including Mac’s for photo editing and organization, printing services for books, calendars, etc. sharing online and to devices from Apple TV in the living room to MobileMe online and iPhone and iPod on the go, and back up solutions like Time Capsule.
That 360 degrees of integration is one of Apple’s — and the iPhone’s — greatest strengths and one smartphone-only manufacturers have no short-term way of matching.
Not content with having only sold 37 million iPhone OS-based devices (which includes the iPod touch), Apple has set about stalking and capturing a whole new class of prey: our moms.
Fiendishly clever, Apple. Who’s mom wouldn’t want all those pictures of the kids (and maybe grandkids), home movies, email and chat access, and multitouch gaming hardcore enough to put the curl back in her beehive.
Only one problem, Apple. Our moms may jailbreak!
(Joking, we still have to help them start “the internet” with that little compass or curled fox icon… Sigh…)
