iPhone and Home Server: something for everybody
Two recent product announcements have piqued my interest.
Apple’s iPhone sounds so cool. (Oh, the product may have to be renamed since Apple didn’t quite lay claim to the name iPhone before going public, but that’s another story). What impresses me most is how Apple managed to come up with something that is so different from all the mobile phones that have come before: it is the mark of Steve Jobs, who isn’t satisfied to be a mere player. If he can’t enter a market with distinction and with pinache, he’s not interested.
I expect the iPhone (or Apple Phone) will sell well among Apple fans and among programmers (if they provide a good programming interface: it runs a variant of Mac OS X), and perhaps among smart-phone types, at least those who aren’t toting Blackberries. Not sure about the Blackberry crowd.
On the other end of the spectrum, Microsoft announced an interesting product called Home Server, which basically takes the solid Windows Server 2003, a workplace workhorse, and wraps it in an easy-to-use web interface, and sits it at the center of a home network. What problem does it solve? It provides disk storage that is easy to add to, easy to connect to, and easy to share among computers. It also backs up the computers connected to it. If the price is right, I’d jump at the chance to have one, especially if it plays nicely with Macs (and it’s supposed to).
