The internet has practically shut down with commentary on yesterday’s announcement. So I’ll contribute sparingly.
The keynote can be viewed online. It runs over an hour. One gets some basic sense of what Apple culture might look like post-Steve Jobs. But clearly this was a carefully scripted production.
Apple obviously dominates the tablet market and arguably the smartphone market as well. This single company is now a powerful force in the world.
Here’s a few thoughts on the announcements:
- iCloud will be great, if it actually works. History suggests it will.
- The improved camera and video recorder is the main reason I will upgrade from my 3GS. Having a decent camera and recorder in my pocket (especially if you have kids!), is one of the best reasons to own an iPhone.
- Siri, the new voice recognition and AI application, looks like a great new feature. Essentially, you’ll be able to control many applications with your voice, using natural speech patterns and contextual understanding. People who spend a lot of time in the car will find this very useful. I don’t drive much and am more frequently in situations where I prefer to type in private versus speak out loud. But for routine tasks like looking up facts, getting directions, or adding calendar entries, this will be a time saver. I hope it’ll be available on the iPad.
- What effect will this “humble personal assistant” have on the marketplace for human assistants, especially when the technology is mature? The automation makes quick work of lots of tasks. And the access to personal information (more than most folks would share with a real assistant) means the application isn’t restricted to work tasks.
- Apple does a great job taking useful but cumbersome workflows, and making them simple. They transform hacks — which might only be adopted by a handful of amateur geeks — into straightforward routines for average people. For example, I have a system for creating reminders when on the go. It uses Voice Control to call ReQall, which sends a message to an email account, which gets turned into an Omnifocus task, which gets synched via MobileMe to multiple devices. It works, but it’s super hacky. Apple seems to ask: What do average people want to do, and can we find a way to make it easy and maybe even fun? That’s a winning a strategy.
- Relatedly, I wonder how these recent rollouts will affect small developers. It seems like Remember the Milk, Instapaper, and Nuance (albeit not that small) are all going to take a hit from these latest deployments. Apple controls hardware and integration, allowing them to improve on any existing idea, in theory. Maybe this is a short term view, since Apple seems to foster more development than it quashes. At least that’s my read from the sidelines.
The big question: Do you plan to buy the new iPhone?
D. Mark Jackson
