Mac iPhone Hype

I wouldn’t be much of a Mac guy if I didn’t have an opinion on the putative iPhone or the hype surrounding it.

Personally, I think it’s a tad bit short-sighted of most of the analysts covering this to think that Apple and Jobs are just going to go for a phone with an iPod built in, but that seems to be the consensus opinion on the subject. But I don’t think they’re going to go for something quite that conventional. After all, with their most recent announcements, they faked out almost everyone with their movie offerings–most analysts expected the movie sales through iTunes and maybe improved iPods to show them, but no one really twigged to the iTV set-top boxes that make the movies easily watchable on televisions everywhere.

I find something like this to be more likely. The patent doesn’t set out an actual device, of course, but I find it more plausible than the simplistic phone-camera-mp3 player. A smartphone, and more, with an innovative (or at least functional) interface that goes just a step beyond the average smartphone of today. I can’t see Apple making such a big deal about something that is just a rehash of what’s available now, just eschewing Palm or Windows Mobile.

That the iPhone is theoretically scheduled to be introduced in First Quarter 07 reinforces my hypothesis, I think. The new MacOS X version is due out around the same time and there is no more perfect a potential convergence between an uber-smartphone and an OS that integrates the synchronization of data as seamlessly as the current iPod/iTunes relationship today. Make available a Window-ized version of the software and, as with most of Apple’s recent moves, make the product ubiquitously useful to all computer users, regardless of platform.

I’ll be sure to stay on top of this for you, loyal reader(s).