Steve Jobs Overseeing Ultraportable Apple / Mac?

With the announcement last month of a major update to Apple’s iPhone OS (version 3.0), a lot more of us began to wonder about whether Apple would be scaling the iPhone’s interface up to something larger, perhaps netbook-sized. Keep in mind that the iPhone is running a scaled-down version of Mac OS X, which runs on the normal Mac product range (MacBooks, etc.). The iPhone update included the fabled copy-and-paste, more support for landscape mode in various applications, increased Spotlight functionality, increased functionality/access for the internal mapping functions/hardware, and official access to 3rd party hardware accessories, and a lot more, all of which would be handy/necessary for something slightly larger.

AppleInsider is reporting on a Wall Street Journal article as well as some past rumors/information that even while Steve Jobs is working from home after taking a medical break from Apple, he’s still overseeing a lot of the major projects currently in progress at Apple, including a device from Apple that is “smaller than its current laptop computers but bigger than the iPhone or iPod Touch”.

Back in October of last year, Jobs made some interesting comments about netbook-sized Macs:

“As we look at the netbook category, that’s a nascent category. As best as we can tell, there’s not a lot of them being sold. You know, one of our entrants into that category if you will is the iPhone, for browsing the Internet, and doing email and all the other things that a netbook lets you do. And being connected via the cellular network wherever you are, an iPhone is a pretty good solution for that, and it fits in your pocket.

“But we’ll wait and see how that nascent category evolves, and we have got some pretty interesting ideas if it does evolve…”

A few months later, in January of this year, during Apple’s first quarter 2009 financial results conference call, Tim Cook, who is filling in for Jobs, had the following to say:

“We’re watching that space, but right now from our point of view, the products in there are principally based on hardware that’s much less powerful than we think customers want, software technology that is not good, cramped keyboards, small displays…. We don’t think people will be pleased with those products. It’s a category we watch, we’ve got some ideas here, but right now we think the products are inferior and will not provide an experience to customers they’re happy with.”

Since that time, there have been some major developments in “that space” that Apple woudl be watching. The market will soon have the NVIDIA Ion platform which provides the kind of hardware acceleration and performance Apple would want in an ultraportable device (and which would closely match the NVIDIA hardware already present in the MacBook and Mac mini line, simplifying some development costs/issues).

You also have AT&T, Apple’s partner with the iPhone in the US, offering a wide range of subsidized netbooks with 3G/mobile broadband packages. Finally, you have low-cost netbooks/ultraportable laptops that are selling incredibly well and gaining mainstream acceptance from both the public and brick-and-mortar retailers such as Office Depot and Best Buy.

The Wall Street Journal article mentions that Jobs was heavily involved in laying out iPhone OS 3.0, and Apple Insider mentions that there have been reports of Apple ordering 10-inch touchscreen displays. The price on touchscreen displays in the 9-inch and 10-inch range should be dropping this year, as devices such as the 8.9-inch touchscreen/convertible Asus Eee PC T91 Touch are produced.

Read:
- Wall Street Journal
via AppleInsider

Apple iPhone OS 3.0 - A Major Upgrade

Today, Apple previewed the upcoming update to the iPhone and iPod Touch software - iPhone OS 3.0.

It includes over 1,000 new APIs for iPhone developers to work with, including support for new features as well as older features that were considered off-limits to developers.

More importantly, at least from the consumer/end-user perspective, it offers some really additions that consumers have been asking for, including official tethering (although Apple is still working with mobile providers on how to handle tethering) as well as Copy and Paste between applications, and MMS support.

Phil Schiller described the iPhone software updates:

“The new iPhone OS 3.0 is a major software release packed with incredible new features and innovations for iPhone customers and developers alike…It will keep us years ahead of the competition.”

New features for consumers/end-users:
- Official support for tethering (important for those of us wanting to tether our laptops to our iPhones)
- Copy & Paste between applications
- MMS/Multimedia messaging
- Landscape mode added for built-in applications such as Mail, Notes, and Text Edit.
- Push notification
- Search/spotlight functionality increased (search Mail, notes, text, iPod library)
- Voice memo capabiltilies

New features for developers:
- Access to 3rd party hardware accessories
- Updates for working with the internal mapping functions
- Purchase/subscription content from within an application (rather than exiting to the App Store)
- Peer-to-peer connections based on Bonjour
- Access to iPod music library

Apple also announced that they’ve now sold 17 million iPhones, as well as over 13 million iPod Touch units. The App Store now has more than 25,000 applications available for download/purchase, and the number of countries available for the App Store has been raised to 77 countries.

You can watch the presentation here: Events.Apple.com

AppleInsider has a good summary of the changes. They’ve also posted their first impressions.

Apple iPhone OS 3.0 - Copy and Paste, Multi-Tasking?

In a follow-up to this week’s upcoming iPhone OS 3.0 announcement, there are plenty of rumors and comments flying around.

At South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, Kevin Rose, Digg founder, is claiming that the “centerpiece” of the upcoming OS 3.0 announcement would be copying and pasting text, as well as multi-tasking.

He believes that much of the efforts that Apple has been putting into the iPhone are to match some of the software advantages/advances available in the Palm Pre. He also said that video capture was out.

Gizmodo is claiming similar information from other sources.

They also claim that MMS will not be added at this time.

Nobody can seem to confirm whether or not tethering to laptops/notebooks will be allowed. Given that it’s already been proven to be relatively easy to add (through jailbreaking of iPhones), and that AT&T has been interested in it, it’s probably going to roll out when AT&T has a grasp on how to handle usage. Obviously tethering would not fall under the current iPhone data contracts, since a tethered laptop/notebook could easily blow through 5GB in a matter of days.

Read:
- AppleInsider
- Gizmodo

iPhone OS 3.0 Announcement - March 17, 2009

First off, this is not the release of Apple’s iPhone OS 3.0. Some people have taken it as a sign that it would be released then. What it is, is a media event where Apple is going to discuss the iPhone OS 3.0, which should be a very significant upgrade. A lot of us with smartphones have been interested in some kind of tethering plan for laptops/notebooks, and it could be announced then.

There will be a look at the new OS, and a look at the Software Development Kit (SDK aka devkit). The SDK has apparently undergone several changes as well. According to Engadget, Apple is calling this an “advance preview of what we’re building”

It’ll be at 10am PST (1PM EST, 12PM CST).

Potential features:
- Possible Push Notification
- MMS Messaging Support
- Tethering to laptops/notebooks/etc. (allowing those devices to share the iPhones data connection)
- 3rd party applications running in the background (which could be take the place of push notification)
- GPS upgrades

Out of those three, I would say tethering will happen for sure - back in November, AT&T mentioned that official iPhone tethering plans were being worked on. They were firm on that. The functionality was there if you were willing to “jailbreak” your iPhone as it is. AppleInsider reports that it will use Bluetooth on the iPhone, attaching to a USB device on a computer, and that AT&T would be offering a new/separate contract for such tethering. This would be in addition to the contract for unlimited on-device browsing (since a laptop/notebook could pull down much more data over AT&T’s 3G and Edge networks than an iPhone could in normal or even semi-heavy use).

I doubt anything about a potential touchscreen-based Apple netbook will be mentioned.

Speaking of Apple, they’ve released their new 4GB iPod Shuffle this week, and ifixit already has a tear-down.

Read:
- AppleInsider
- Engadget

2009 - The Year of the Netbook (Not the Year of the Smartphone or MIDs)

A new report by ABI Research claims that 2009 should be the break-out year for ultraportable netbooks. They believe that up to 35 million of the devices will sell this year, with those numbers climbing to over 135 million by 2013.

ABI believes that a large part of the reason for the projected growth is because netbooks are filling an important demand that Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) and smartphones are not able to fill, as far as having a clear usage model:

“In recent years, the industry still expected the smartphones to be more than they turned out to be, and most recently, MIDs were thought to be the next big mobile devices segment, but an unclear usage model continues to confuse the market,” ABI analyst Kevin Burden said in a statement. “So today, netbooks’ time has come, and ABI Research expects them to enjoy very strong market growth.”

According to InformationWeek, the report does give credit to smartphones, saying they paved the way for netbooks, because they were able to introduce people to what was possible with mobile devices and web/internet access.
Read more

Apple iPhone - Official Tethering Will Happen

Once upon a time, you could purchase a tethering app from Apple’s App Store. Netshare allowed iPhone 3G owners to tether their iPhones with their laptops, through a WiFi connection. Tethering allows you to use your iPhone as a mobile broadband connection for your laptop. AT&T did not want this to happen, since you would normally pay extra every month to tether other phones. The reason for the extra charge - you could use up a lot more bandwidth in a shorter amount of time than what you could do with your iPhone by itself. People even wrote Steve Jobs about it, and he agreed and said it was being discussed with AT&T.

Now those talks are coming to fruition - MobileCrunch mentions that an interview with AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph De La Vega during this week’s Web 2.0 Summit revealed that AT&T has plans for an official plan “soon”. No idea on pricing or availability or bandwidth caps. People can use work arounds to unofficially tether their iPhones and notebooks, but an official version would be welcome.

Read:
- MobileCrunch

ThinkFree Office Suite for Netbooks

If you are a netbook owner, you may be looking around for an office suite that is more suited to the small form factor displays we are seeing with the 7″, 9″, and 10″ displays and their non-standard resolutions (such as 1024×600 or 800×480).

Look no further than ThinkFree. They have announced the “ThinkFree Netbook solution”, which is geared towards smaller displays, as well as online collaboration. It handles word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations and is compatible with Microsoft Office 2007.

It runs on Windows XP, Vista, Linux, and Mac OS X, and the documents can be viewed on some mobile devices, including the iPhone.

You can download a trial at http://product.thinkfree.com/mobile. After you fill out a survey between now and October 31, you can receive a free license key. If you check out the ThinkFree blog, you can see videos of the suite in action on netbooks. No word on final pricing.

Read: CNET
via: jkOnTheRun

Apple, Steve Jobs on Netbooks, Finances

AppleInsider has several articles up about Apple’s fourth quarter conference call today. Included among them, Steve Jobs’ comments on netbooks. Jobs commented on netbooks recently when Apple’s latest MacBook was launched, saying that they felt the market was just getting started.

Based on today’s financial discussions, Apple is only getting stronger, and clearly has the cash to do what they want to do. They now have $24.5 billion in the bank, with no debt. That’s some pretty hefty financial resources.

The iPhone App Store is doing extremely well as well - Jobs commented that “we’ve never seen anything like this in our careers” and by this time tomorrow, the 200 millionth app should be sold.
Read more

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