[Macworld]

Post your comments for CES Preview: Will 2008 show live up to iPhone? here

[danviento]

I could definitely see the GM spokesman coming out with a better command system that Ford's scary attempt to use MS. To be honest, I'm surprised at how well Sync works, being MS and all, but I guess its strict limitations and inability to connect to the internet insulate it from some of MS's usual problems.

That being said, I hope our GM guy will have something along the lines of being more iPod compatible. The radio only headunit of my brand new truck could use a switch out since aside from the half-measure of using an FM transmitter/modulator, I have no way of getting an iPod to play over the Delco system. Sadly, it'll probably be more inane posing on "green" stuff. "Ooohh, look at our fancy Volt! Isn't it sleeki looking? And sooooooooo out of your league. Yes techies, drool all you want, just stay 20' or more." Maybe he'll finally let us in on the hydrogen-cell cars. Those have been practically ready-for-market for years, so it should be near-perfect by now, or so I'd hope.

[XMattingly]

You know, I got the giggles when I heard that people in Michael Dell's audience were following news from Macworld more closely than his speech. And the suggestion that this year's CES will have to live up to something Apple announced a year ago gives me the giggles all over again. :)

[MacTechAspen]

The OLED news is what piqued my curiosity. This is exciting, well, for the uber geeks anyway.

[lwdesign]

Oh joy! New TVs, phones and laptops! Wow, this is really exciting stuff!

Apple's stock is hitting the $200 mark because they come up with totally new products and paradigms that leave the rest of the tech world gasping and trying to catch up. They sweat the details and make the user interfaces and functionality intuitive and fun, like they've been doing for decades.

Oh wait, we should all be buying Microsoft's new table-top computing system that's the size of a large piece of furniture. Yeah, that'll be a huge consumer hit!

There may be some interesting stuff to come out of CES this year but it just seems like more of the same incremental, inching improvements. Like a laptop with a larger 500GB to 1TB hard drive? OK, that's fine and expected, but certainly not earth-shattering.

How about massive developments in battery power and longevity? How about a laptop that can run for 10 hours on a single charge? That would be something! How about terrific advances in Flash RAM replacing hard drives in laptops, allowing tons of power saving and faster response--and at a cheap enough price that mere mortals could purchase. Will these be at CES? I hope so, but more likely they'll be announced by Apple first at one of Steve's keynotes. Then the tech world will play catch up again.

[wpeltzman]

I bought my Iphone on opening day and think it is the best gadget ever. I am puzzled at your distortion of the facts on where the Iphone was first introduced. I am a long time visitor to the CES. In fact Steve Jobs came to the CES in January of 2007 and introduced it to a huge audience. Your gloating about the fact that CES attendance could be down also comes over as not being very professional.

I think it was a smart move by Mr. Jobs since he had an audience of about 3000 people that did not know much about Apple in general.

William Peltzman

[AlFeldzamen]

At the January MacWorld conference,

-- Look for BEATLES tunes availability in the iTunes store.

-- Look for DICTATION SOFTWARE for the iPhone, software that would let a user dictate not only the dialing instructions for an outgoing telephone call, but also an outgoing Email, that could later be received on the user's home computer, then to be filed or printed. . . . and this would indeed further revolutionize the cell phone world, no?

Al Feldzamen

[adobephile]

I'd be very pleased with either or both of your items.

What's very intriguing for me is the fact that the iPhone is running real OS X, and that Apple will release an SDK soon. It's SUCH a coup or trump card, whatever you'd like to call it, for Apple, which must have the competition literally WRITHING with envy and consternation over the challenges facing them to best it in any way at all.

What an end run! What an opportunity for any company to explore and exploit such a powerful platform and medium, and to address not only existing markets, but to open up new ones!

[lwdesign]

Who wants CES to fail? Competition is a wonderful thing. Apple is kept on its toes, and Apple's innovations force other companies into new R&D or at very least into trying to copy what they've already done. I don't believe Apple is the be-all and end-all of gadget developers. It's just that they observably tend to create elegant, easy to use products that the masses have taken to (iPod and iPhone), which is now fueling a long overdue interest in Macs by the masses.

Speaking of which, these days I get all kinds of interest in my MacBook Pro because of the Apple logo whenever I'm out and about. In years past I used to get sneers from Windows users, now I generally get a lot of interest and "I've been thinking about getting a Mac" or "I just bought a new Mac" comments. All because the iPod has been showing Windows users what great products Apple has.

[jdb8167]

KPO said:

I like Apple products, but am wary of a monopolistic cult of Steve Jobs. They are nowhere near a monopoly in terms of mobile phones yet, but still manage to do some things that hint of what they might do if they achieve a dominant position (such as adding TV-Out to the iPhone but adding a verification chip to shut out existing third party TV-out cables for iPods). I also don't like the emerging view that if Apple doesn't think a feature necessary, it musn't be (e.g. MMS, FM radio, cameraphone with flash).

First of all, Apple changed the iPhone to use a new video out format for digital TVs. There is no verification chip, it is just the standard docking port. The rumor of the verification chip was debunked months ago. You can read the full details here: iPhone Video Out Background

Apple designs products to meet the needs of a wide audience. Engineering is about tradeoffs. You can't produce elegant products yet have every feature. For example, the cameraphone without a flash. A real flash is a tremendous battery drain. Fake flashes don't really work. There really isn't anything in between. Apple obviously decided that the flash was not important enough to make it into the iPhone. You may disagree and that is fine and if it is important enough to you, you should buy a different product that has the feature you require. But Apple has to make design decisions when creating a product. Some decisions will be wrong and that will impact sales but it is hard to argue that sales of iPhones have been impacted by any of Apple's decisions.

[jdb8167]

Thanks for the references. I can think of a reason why Apple felt the need to add a challenge-response handshake to the dock connector for the iPhone video out.
The iPhone can produce some serious interference which I imagine would be harsh on a video connector. Without the "authentication" the video might work very poorly if it isn't properly sheilded. Certainly other dock applications have this problem with the iPhone which is why you get the warning dialog saying to turn on airplane mode.

Ascribing evil intent on the part of Apple is a common game on the net. I'm usually content to wait for the real details to emerge when we usually find out less sinister explanations exist.

Apple has always said that the iPhone is a product still being updated. They've promised updates for the next 2 years. It isn't surprising that some features are only now being added. The alternative was to wait additional months until all the features have been completed. I have no problem with the multiple SMS recipients being added only now. Just like I had no problem waiting for video out. Both features are very compelling to me but hardly something that would prevent me from purchasing the phone. I expect MMS and video recording to be added in the future as well.

You are mistaken if you think that developing software is not about engineering tradeoffs.