iPhone Phone Home, And Reaction To My Mac OS X Review

My initial reaction to Apple's Macworld announcements was: "Um...OK, a phone, the Apple TV, and a name change...OK." Now, I think the iPhone is a solid phone. I think it has a lot of things that people will want, and it will probably shake up the phone market quite a bit. Am I going to get one? Probably not. First, I'm a Sprint customer, and to be more precise, a happy Sprint customer. There's nothing in the iPhone that makes me want to jump over to Cingular. I almost did that once, but then discovered that to keep my current number, I couldn't do it in the Cingular Store, I had to do it online. Even though I was in the Cingular store, and ready to spend money. Not impressive.If you're looking to change phones or plans, it's probably far more attractive, but there's nothing there that makes me want to become a Cingular customer, especially when I'd have to wait until June to do so.

The Apple TV is, well, an intermediary between my computer and my television. If you do a lot of your DVD/movie viewing on a computer, I imagine it's a really cool bit of hardware for you. But if not? Then not so much. I don't download movies, I don't watch them on my MacBook Pro unless I'm on a plane. So for folks like me, the Apple TV is well, OK, neat, but not a "must buy."

The name change from "Apple Computer" to "Apple Inc." is one of those things that I'm going to avoid reading too much into. It's too easy to over-analyze everything that Steve Jobs does, and you can wander down some pretty strange paths if you do. I think it's just a reflection of the obvious, that Apple is more than just a computer company. I don't see the Mac going away anytime soon.

On the Mac OS X Shines In Comparison With Windows Vista article, I have to say that I'm surprised at the level of attention it received. Some of the comments are a bit silly, such as the whole "He's a Mac user, he's unqualified to talk about Vista" thing. Well, yes, I'm a Mac user, I'm also a Windows user. I'm not sure how using one OS makes you unqualified to talk about anything but that OS, but OK. I learned long ago that taking Slashdot too seriously makes your life more stressful than it needs to be. However, I am rather flattered that the article has gotten the attention it has. I really wasn't expecting it.