Grabber headline notwithstanding, Steve Jobs stunned the Macworld crowd with iPhone and Apple TV. What’s missing?

What’s missing is a laundry list of expected Apple products that will wait for another day in the sun.

Macworld’s keynote is history. My eyes are bleary, my feet are tired, my thumb is numb and my hand is quivering. Blackberry’s suck.

Missing in action is pretty much everything we thought we’d see. On the plus side, hanging the name of iTV to AppleTV is a good move.

I’ll buy. Will you buy? Is a 40 gigabyte hard drive enough? AppleTV is Mac and Windows and iTunes centric so Carol absolutely nailed the “secret” ingredients.

Meanwhile, Apple stunned everyone with the iPhone; even using the iPhone name just a week or so after Cisco launched their very own iPhone as a voice-over-IP device. Lawyers, choose your weapons.

That was it. That was the Macworld keynote. What was missing? Everything else. Literally. Everything. Our prognosticating capaiblity and credibility are deep in the fallibility pit.

No show and tell of Mac OS X Leopard. Everyone expected it, no one got it. Leopard will wait to pounce another day, but may also come with some very cool new spots.

No iLife ‘07 and no iWork ‘07. That’s surprising, but the next update may wait for even more cool features built in to Leopard. In one swell foop, Steve Jobs just reset the expectation clock.

It was Macworld 2007 but there wasn’t much mention of Macs. No MacBook Pro mini. No .Mac revamp. No faster chips in the Mac mini, no dual quad core in the Mac Pro.

Steve Jobs just reset the expectation clock. It’s likely that nothing new will show up before OS X Leopard, whenever that is. No new iPods, other than what’s contained in the iPhone.

No Beatles on the iTunes Store. I just searched and all that’s there are tribute music and soundalikes. The Beatles will live for another day.

There are more movies on the iTunes Store as Paramount just dumped a bunch of their catalog, though no newer movies.

Apple did not hint about a MacPro mini to fill the gap between the iMac and MacPro. Other than two hours of stunning everyone with both a highly expected product and a fully unexpected product, we’ll simply have to cool our jets and wait for time to stop again.

I’m serious about the “resetting the expectation clock.” That’s exactly what Steve did and no one really cares. We’ll have AppleTV to chew on for awhile, all the while looking forward to the iPhone launch this summer.

That’s six months worth Reality Distortion Field, though in the meantime we go back to speculating, prognosticating, and predicting the near term future of hardware and software from Apple.

Most of us Apple watchers expected a show-n-tell of the AppleTV, and a ship date in February or so. That’s about all we got right other than an Apple phone.

We didn’t even get the name right because we expected Apple to defer to Cisco’s iPhone and come up with something else.

Bambi and I will meet up, grab a bite to eat, and hit the exhibit floor. She thinks we’ll get to touch and feel the iPhone. She knows somebody at Apple who doesn’t mind being seen with a tall blonde and her diminutive Puerto Rican sidekick.

I’m not terribly surprised Apple held off on iLife and iWork. I’m guessing the next version will be built around Leopard technologies. Though a keynote version that feeds to ?TV would be slick and jive well with Apple’s style. To be frank, I’m a bit disappointed. I would have preferred Apple demo Leopard etc. and give the iPhone its own event (It seems to me other products likely got no mention to focus attention more on the Phone), but I suspect Steve decided the phone was the more important product. Certainly it’s the more innovative and attention grabbing; it speaks to his confidence that coincidental with Vista’s demo at CES that Jobs basically decided that Vista’s launch wasn’t worth competitive response, demo wise.

And I’m willing to wait awhile for Leopard especially if it means wholesale adoption of ZFS.

Enjoy the show.

Hmm, pretty dissapointing!

Personally i couldn’t care less about i/aTV. iPhone looks awesome and i want one now, but, being in the UK means it’ll be another 10 months or so and when it does get here it’ll be vapourware like next gen consoles for a while :( And expensive vapourware at that.

No Leopard info doesn’t surprise me particularly, looking forward to seeing more new features when they do get revealed though.

The thing i was looking forward to hugely was perhaps some revamp to the look and feel of the MBP or iMac rather than just what’s inside, again more to look forward to later in the year at WWDC i guess (hope?)

Oh well, enjoy whatever you can find for the rest of the week. Oh, check out VMWare while you’re there. Truely awesome for a beta, parallels, look out you’ve had it easy so far.

Well, I believe Intel is debuting a fair update to the memory chipset sometime in the Spring, but no major update to the CPUs until the winter timeframe, so Apple’s release schedule will probably mirror that. If I had to guess case redesigns probably won’t happen until Wintertime, if then.

I just want to say that the Mac rumor mill really outdid itself in the weeks leading up to MacWorld. There were many predictions—and many of them were completely baseless. Usually there’s a shred of proof behind good rumors, but the rumors this time were so obviously shots in the dark that I can’t understand why people believed them. Maybe hope has replaced reality with some Mac fans. It’s sad because it creates a situation where Apple cannot possibly satisfy the fans.

NickDDP - 09 January 2007 06:33 PM

It’s sad because it creates a situation where Apple cannot possibly satisfy the fans.

I have to say, I’m pretty darn impressed by the iPhone.  Glad I didn’t get a Blackberry.  Sorry the wait is so long for it; it seemed almost pointless to introduce it now, and make us wait so long.  But I guess that with the FCC approval process being a dead giveaway, and the market demanding it, they had little choice.

I’m sufficiently awestruck by the iPhone that I’m not at all disappointed by the rest.  Other things will live to be shown another day.

There is one small disappointment.  Will anyone else miss the “flying saucer” form factor of the AirPort?  I think the Mac Mini-style case is a shade drab.  No wonder it didn’t make the keynote :-(.

D

The iPhone is so slick and amazing it overshadows anything. Probably a good call not to even mention the new Airport Extreme, it’s such small potatoes in comparison. The iTV was thought to be big news, but it’s dull by comparison. Add in the fact that we’re still light on movie content and TV pricing isn’t competitive with cable, and I (sadly) see no reason to toss the DVD player and cable company yet.

For my money the only real disappointment is that the iPhone is Cingular-exclusive for several years. They don’t have the greatest coverage.

The exhibit floor at Macworld is a mad house. Crazy. It’s almost impossible to get in to view anything at the Apple booth. If they had 40,000 iPhones they would cell out.

I got to look at Apple TV with Bambi, and it looks like we’ll have a chance to see the iPhone up close in awhile. She knows someone at Apple. She knows someone everywhere.

We’ve just finished lunch. Bambi did a quick review of Apple TV. It’s bigger than I expected, nearly 8 inches wide vs. the 6.5-inch square of the Mac mini, so it’s obviously not designed to stack, but to sit on an entertainment center or near a TV. I haven’t seen the new Airport Express, but one of the Apple guys here said it’s the same size as the Mac mini.

Everyone we’ve met here seems to believe the Apple TV is very cool, but pales to the iPhone.

I say good riddance. And on some level I like the convergence they have going with the ?TV/AE/Mini.

Like was posted above, I’m guessing that iLife/iWork will wait until 10.5 ships. As to the iPhone, it’s really not a phone as much as a communication device. WiFi, Bluetooth, Cell Phone that handles browsing, e-mail, contacts, IM, etc. It could be huge- not just in the consumer space. As to the Apple TV, I’m surprised they didn’t include a camera and add iChat AV to the interface.

Enjoy the City by the Bay.

P.S. If you get a chance, check out OWC’s Tablet Mac and tell us what you think.

the Phone really resonates with the MacBook Pro buyers. The entrepreneur types that likely have switched to Apple in the last few years (or been here awhile) that really just like their tools to work and work well, but aren’t necessarily techies. I suspect they will just eat this up (and the ones I know seem to have immediately) but the crux is they want the phone unlocked. Heck, I want the phone, but only will consider it unlocked.

I think that one subset of Apple’s market really will respond well to the iPhone, and has the money (or expense account) to buy it on release. Once that core market is satisfied, the popularity will trickle down nicely, not to ignore trickle down from the hollywood/music set that will just devour it, and I suspect Apple will introduce if not a scaled down model, then an aggressive replacement driving the price of the iPhone down.

I strongly suspect that despite the 6 month lead time to release, and the inevitable grumbling from those of us who don’t consider $600 a trivial expense, the price will remain where it is for most of 2007.

Kate, I don’t think the iTv is that interesting, since I don’t watch TV, but I think the iPhone is just an amazing device.

I just wanted to thank you for all the hard work you and your thumbs went into producing this coverage for us.  I like your writing style.  So thank you, and I hope your fingers recover quickly!

D

[quote author=”BetaNews” ]Given Apple’s numerous requests to use the iPhone trademark, and extensive discussions with them,” the representative told BetaNews, “it is our belief that with their announcement today, Apple intends to agree to the final documents and public statements that were distributed to them last night, and that addressed the last few remaining items. We expect to receive a signed agreement today.

Interesting…

I was expecting fire breathing dragons, the melting of non-MAC PC’s, tablet MAC’s and being able to reach out and talk to aliens on the new iPhone.  Instead, there were a few lady fingers popping, not even an M80.  I’m extremely pleased that iTunes and the iPod are doing so well.  Was there ever any doubt?  AppleTV doesn’t interest me as I watch very little TV and for me, it is a waste of time.  Except for Smallville on Thursday nights.  The iPhone sounds interesting but not at $500 or $600 for a 4G or 8G unit.  From what I have seen, the iPhone is now the most expensive phone that is not quite available.  A 40G would be more appealing.  I would not use it for my iTunes library because it would fill up in a heartbeat.  I have a 40G iPod (gen 4) that I dearly love and have approximately 20G’s of music on it.  I would hate to be working out and have a $600 phone accidently fall on the floor, so it could not be a replacement for the iPod and is probably not meant to be.  I spend most all day on PC’s and most all of every evening on my MACBook Pro.  Except for corporate types and techno nuts (like me) that is one heck of a phone.  A person would have to have a real business need to purchase such a phone (or the aforementioned techno nut).  I love my Blackberry 7290 and the new Blackberry Pearl is hard to beat for the cost of $199 after 2 year contract and rebate through Cingular.  It has voice dialing as many new phones do.  Looking at the internet or reading emails on a small screen is tough enough with perfect vision.  My cataracts make it a little more difficult.  Still, I would like to see the new iPhone for myself before I make my planned upgrade this year.

RATS!!!!!  UPDATE!!!!  I just watch the demo on Apple’s website.  Now I want one!  I spend money almost faster than my wife (she doesn’t want to know how to use a computer which is fortunate for me).

I’m excited about the iPhone. It has almost everything I hoped for when we discussed where the iPod was going eons ago. The only thing this “Communicator” is missing is some weird new battery technology (fuel cell, solar power, nano-tube fusion or something) and mega storage.

Being that it’s 8 GB for now, there is still going to be room for improvement on the high-end iPod. I have 20 GB of crud on mine and growing. The high price on this phone is going to allow room for regular iPod improvements for years to come.

In fact, that’s a good way to look at the iPhone. Today’s iPhone is 2001’s 5GB iPod. Look how far Apple has taken the iPod line in half a decade. This phone will have the form factor/storage/features that will make us all drool in a few years. I’m already drooling, but I need a lot more than 8GB for an all-in-one device. Will I buy one? Absolutely. OSX-lite in a pocket can’t be missed.

I’m pretty stoked about the new direction for Apple, Inc.. But how can a keynote pass without some Leopardness? We Apple users get such small doses of Steve’s RDF. I just wanted to bask in it a while through the delicious demos of various software. Especially iLife ‘07. What’s coming…MMMmmmmm. And I was hoping to see Apple’s alternative to Vista’s new graphical interface.

So that means a Special Event or two this year? I hope so.

One thing we didn’t hear from those who attended - how did Steve Jobs look? Did he appear healthy?

Steve Jobs is a very nasty piece of work. What else would you call a man who walks up to a 2 year old toddler, holds up the biggest, loveliest, most colorful lollipop in the whole world, and whips it away at the last second, saying, “You’ll get this in 6 months.”

There’s a sadistic streak there. I can hear him, still cackling away backstage.

The iPhone is certainly revolutionary, and all of the others—Nokia, Sony, etc—are kicking themselves, saying, “Darn! Wish we did that!” And they will, too, any bets on who makes the first iPhone clone? And how soon it will follow iPhone onto the market? Place ‘em here now, folks!

I’m on the wrong side of the Atlantic as well, and the iPhone had best be ready for the Irish/UK market by Christmas, because it’s on my list. Hear that, Santa? Do ya? Do ya?

Not bothered by iTV. Enough TV in this household.

Most probable buy: new Airport Extreme. Because I’m on the verge—dangling over the cliff edge, that’s how verge—of going wireless in this household, to resolve some conflict of computer and web time. Was nearly going to go Belkin, but maybe I’ll hold off until Feb, everything to be reconsidered.

Kate, Bambi, I knew you guys had the pot far too full to put on the boil. No way Steve was going to throw out all of those wishes. Certainly not Leopard, I figured much too early. But I am surprised by the lack of iLife tax. And I thought they’d announce ONE new machine, like a new Mini or a new pro tower, or something. Attention, Kate and Bambi, any sign of that ModBook by OWC there? Or are they just putting out a new urban myth?

I won’t be at all impressed by the movies and TV episodes for download until they become available in Europe. Then I’ll spend quite liberally on Star Trek. With you all the way, Jack and Carol!