From: j4	Date: January 10th, 2007 10:07 am (UTC)		(Link)

invented the PDA

But nicer! Slimmer! Prettier! MOAR FUCTIONALITIEZ!

Okay, I admit to some bias here... I mean, I've been an Apple user since about 1981, I stood by them through the wilderness years, I even found something to love about MacOS 8 (though I can't remember exactly what it was).

I don't think the iPhone will cure climate change, I don't think it will bring world leaders sobbing to their knees and vowing undying treaties of international peace, I don't even think it will improve my life (not least because I would have to remortgage a kidney to be able to afford it), but I do think it's SUPER-SWEET OMG TECH LUST 11111!!!!!ELEVENTYONE.

It's like having a crush, okay? You know it's buffle-brained, you know they're not gonna love you for being an obsessive weirdo, but then they flick their fringe out of their eyes and OMG SWOON.

Or is this just me? First law of Teh Intarnets: It's Not Just You.

	From: nja	Date: January 10th, 2007 10:21 am (UTC)		(Link)

Oh, it's a very sexy PDA (and I say that as someone who is quite happy with a 5-year-old Sony which doesn't have a phone or web connectivity or an MP3 player or a camera, and who generally disapproves of multiple-purpose gadgets apart from Swiss Army knives). Being an Apple product, it will be easy to use (and other people will remortgage kidneys for that ease of use). But it's still a PDA, not a revolution in technology.

I was expecting something really revolutionary which would change the world, like the Segway.

	From: j4	Date: January 10th, 2007 11:05 am (UTC)		(Link)

generally disapproves of multiple-purpose gadgets

I downgraded from my SonyEricsson P900 to a Nokia 63mumble because I didn't want to have to know the numbers on the end of the mumble to be able to make a phone call, and didn't think I really needed an mp3 player in my phone (or indeed at all, at the time).

I have since been won over to the iPod (though not to the modern fashion of wearing the damn thing ALL THE TIME so you can't hear anything anybody says to you or complete basic shopping transactions without shouting and so that the whole of the bus has to listen to your choice of Queen's Greatest Hits) but the bit that really made me excited was when Jobs said (and I now can't find the quote, but I read it in one of those "live from MacWorld" stream-of-consciousness things) that the killer app was that it was a phone. That you could make calls on it easily. My inner grumpy old woman still thinks that you should be able to make phone calls with a phone, and that that shouldn't actually be harder to do than streaming a video podcast to your toaster.

But, yeah. :)

	From: nja	Date: January 10th, 2007 11:15 am (UTC)		(Link)

I do love my iPod. Actually, my iPods (iPodS?) because I have a little 2Gb one for day-to-day convenience and a big 20Gb one which holds a reasonable selection of music and can be used as an external hard disk drive. But part of the reason why I love them (and paid more than I would have done for rival MP3 players) is that they are just MP3 players with good usability¹, not all-singing all-dancing entertainment modules with a million buttons and cool blue LEDs all over them.

¹ N.b. this is a real word

	From: j4	Date: January 10th, 2007 11:31 am (UTC)		(Link)

But the whole loveliness of the iPhone is that it doesn't have a million buttons and cool blue LEDs! It has one (1111!!!!1!) button! Glorious Mac minimalism a-go-go!

From: rgl	Date: January 10th, 2007 12:48 pm (UTC)		(Link)

It's the famous Bjarne Stroustrop quote, isn't it? I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.

	From: j4	Date: January 10th, 2007 03:20 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Ha! I hadn't heard that one. Thank you.

	From: lnr	Date: January 10th, 2007 10:59 am (UTC)		(Link)

Jobs has invented the PDA! Hallelujah!

See http://blag.xkcd.com/2007/01/10/ipod-announcement-five-years-ago/ :-)

	From: brrm	Date: January 10th, 2007 11:22 am (UTC)		(Link)

Jobs has invented the PDA! Hallelujah!

Funny you should say that

Then Jobs killed the Newton when he returned to Apple, because he disliked Scully. Might explain his aversion to the stylus, though (as seen in the Keynote speech - "Stylus? Who wants a stylus?!"

	From: aardvark179	Date: January 10th, 2007 12:54 pm (UTC)		(Link)

He's got a point with this sort of device though. If it's just for general pointing then your finger should be good enough, and if you want to write on the thing then you either need a graffiti type system, or full hand writing recognition. The former is less than intuitive, and the latter requires a big screen.

	From: martling	Date: January 10th, 2007 10:51 am (UTC)		(Link)

It has, however, caused me to lose the game.

	From: j4	Date: January 10th, 2007 11:06 am (UTC)		(Link)

Bwahahahaha!

Er, I mean, "sorry". :-)

	From: jiggery_pokery	Date: January 13th, 2007 09:34 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Only by your comment that it was so good did I realise there was some significance to the letter placement, rather than a general sentiment of "This makes me boggle"... :-)

Fun!

	From: j4	Date: January 10th, 2007 11:56 am (UTC)		(Link)

Well, not all hyphens. Slight exaggeration for dramatic effect. But they try to avoid "unnecessary" ones. My line manager and I draw that line in different places. Though of course drawing lines between words is the whole problem, innit.