What amazes me is how the Internet has made breaking news just minutes away for someone thousands of miles away from the event. Following the endgadget liveblog, unwashed, unshaven, still dressed in night clothes, I read what Steve Jobs had said just a minute or so before on my computer screen at home.
I had the New York Times Bit correspondent on liveblog as well but his reports were not as frequent blow-by-blow like Joshua Topolsky's at Endgadget. I also had Twitterific on so read tweets as people commented on what was unveiling at the San Francisco Yerba Buena (Good Herb) Center.
Apple did it again, despite naysayers. The way they built up their campaign of controlled leaks so anticipation grows like a giant propaganda machine is perhaps without peer. This reminds me of the much-hyped release of the iPhone. Most comments were slightly negative-"underwhelmed." The most frequently written criticism was lack of multitasking which one could do with a "real" computer like the iMac or MacBook. Jobs left for the very last his announcement of 3G phone connectivity. Without that I think the product would have floundered.
AT&T served an unexpected surprise. It undercut its competitors in offering unlimited data/call monthly charge for $29.99 and this without contract in an unlocked GSM-microSIM device. For me this was one highlight of Apple's new release. It heralds a new era in phone/Internet mobile pricing, perhaps appreciated only in the context of what has been happening on Wall Street and the global financial market. Pull back, retrench, cut prices back to something closer to affordability.
The most momentous element of the release to me is Apple's iBooks. At a time when the publishing industry has been struggling with sales for paper products, Apple's iBooks Store could very well revolutionize not only books but magazine distributions. With its capacity for Apps, one can fantasize about the possibilities.
Pundits mourned how the iPad lacked hardware revolutionary emendations. Someone pointed out the obscured significance. Apple provides the hardware and a few initial software offerings (as it has always done) created by Apple itself and a few typical software creators) and provides with the hardware release the software development package that allows other entrepreneurs to create the content that makes the device so powerful and useful.
I think Apple was right in not changing the UI significantly. Why change something that works? Now people used to the iPhone and iPod can use the same skills to use a new device with more content possibilities. Jobs spoke of standing on the shoulders of Amazon's Kindle. What he didn't say but which is obvious, the iPad stands on the shoulders of the iPhone and iPod, and really on the whole Apple product line: the online store, the intuitive graphical interface, touchscreen that allows fingers to directly manipulate content.
Jobs said something at the outset that struck me because I had not thought of his company in this way. Apple, he said, was the world's largest producer of "mobile" devices. Of course! With included WiFi, Apple MacBooks, iPhones and iPod Touch are what else but mobile devices? These are the very devices I first heard about at NAB in Las Vegas four years ago, devices that were going to be the new distribution outlets for creative people.
Sometimes I am appalled at how slow I am on the uptake. It has taken me two years to feel I am understanding digital media enough to be creating intelligent products. I am so very far away from creating the cutting-edge, edgy products I wanted to make but over all I am happy with the little I have accomplished. The future is opening, slowly, but it is opening to a new page, and I am excited.
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