Re: [NTLK] Flash: Something interesting

John,

> At dinner earlier this week, my colleague Jason Snell told me that
> if he could get an external keyboard for his iPhone, he might not
> have to bring his laptop; he could get by with his iPhone alone.

This is the big problem for Apple and why the Touch products are not
marketed as PDAs. For a lot of people, having a keyboard for their
iPh or iPT would mean that their reliance on carrying a MacBook would
be reduced or eliminated completely. Add the iSDK and the kind of
packages that would come out of that, probably very similar to those
for the Newt, and Apple have to address the transition from
profitable and expensive laptops to profitable but much cheaper hand-
helds.

I'm pretty sure that the eMate was felt to be too close to being good
enough for most people in 1997 compared to very expensive PowerBooks
to represent a danger to PowerBook sales.

Apple will resist making the Touch products into anything that can
cannibalise MacBook sales for as long as possible and I see the MBA
as a way of heading off the challenge of their own alternatives for a
little longer.

Hand-helds of various types are where the market seems to be going
but the transition may well be painful if laptop sales cannot be
sustained for a few more years until the numbers of hand-helds
increases to make up the revenue.

The MBPro line is sure to continue for a long time and will probably
become the foundation of the 'Mac' part of the business, becoming the
new home computer, to which hand-helds become the smart peripherals.

Once the game is up and the Touch devices have a viable data entry
mechanism and software to match, I'm sure Apple has a strategy for
leveraging all the tricks available, including HWR and anything else
they have been working on in the last few years to make it solid
platform for doing real work, and the Newt will have returned.

Joel.

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Received on Tue Jan 22 06:25:44 2008