Today I was perusing the news and so far everything I have seen and heard is over the iPhone 2.0. Within the next few hours we are going to be sitting at the edge of our seats listening to Steve Jobs give a keynote at the World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco, CA. What will he talk about? Will it be the iPhone? Will we all be wowed or disappointed?

The truth is…. I don’t care. Yes, this is a great phone with a lot of innovation and ingenuity. Yes, it can do a plethora of things that my current phone might or might not do. But what is the big turn-on with this device? It’s not a magic genie that will grant you 3 wishes.

There are 5 million iPhones out there right now. That is not even 1% of the cell phone population. At $400 a pop, I suppose that’s a good reason why it’s not there.

The iPhone 2.0 is not only expected to have new features like 3G, but also - according to MacRumors - will be accompanied by a $200 rebate, making the new version of the iPhone only $199. It will be a more affordable price and possible to saturate the market.

To put the iPhone into 10% of the populations’ hands would be a major coup. That would mean over 50 million iPhones in the wild. For Apple to do this, however, they would have to abandon the AT&T contract and open the phone up to most - if not all - cell carriers. Why? Well, if Apple wants to convince Corporate America to buy in, they will have to give them the choice of who they can get it from.

One of the new projects Steve Jobs already announced in a previous town hall meeting is to add functionality so the iPhone can be incorporated and used by Corporate. This is a big step for Apple seeing as they shut down their “Corporate Division” a long time ago. Even Business Week points out Apple doesn’t have any Corporate sales people.

Still, not all corporations have contracts with AT&T. Switching to a $200 phone with 3G might change a few contracts, but not enough to hit that 10% mark. Opening up the market to other carriers will.

According to Yahoo Shopping, the iPhone is the most popular phone. However, the #2 phone - the Nokia N85 - has sold twice as many phones. I couldn’t find a statistic on it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Blackberry Pearl is also ahead in phone sales than Apple. Why is that?

There are other fish that can be fried at the WWDC anyway. OS X 10.6 is one thing. The itablet is another. Apple might introduce a new “AppleTV”. Heck, even the iToilet might get some exposure.

The most interesting thing that I see is Jobs and WWDC getting free publicityof the event. Heck, I bet there are even a good amount of IT professionals that don’t know what WWDC stands for.

For the last couple months people have been yammering on about the new phone. Waiting in anticipation over the keynote, and eventual announcement. There are some that have even jumped the gun and posted “Hearsay” and false photos and information.

After all, according to Google Trends, what is the top Internet search right now? Well, it’s Leon Powe. But WWDC is 11th and 13th, and iPhone is 21, 33, 53 and probably a bunch of other spots. Still, many news sites and Blogs including this one are giving Steve Jobs the media push. Can’t say as much for the N85. Don’t even see that in the top 100 searches.

I still don’t care if it’s announced. If they do, that is nice. If they don’t I think I’ll laugh at those who made a big deal out of it and move on. In fact, now that I think about it, it might be in Apples interest NOT to talk about iPhone 2.0? Why? Could you imagine the press they would get if Jobs doesn’t mention one word on the iPhone?

I guess we’ll find out in a few hours.

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Maybe someday I’ll get to sit and talk with Steve Jobs. Until then I’ll have to make up the interview in my head. Because there has been talk of the new iPhone coming out on June 9th. Also there has been talk of Apple getting the gamers with a new handheld system. So I just had to ask Steve….

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Apple held a Town Hall meeting in where they discussed the future of the iPhone. The end result is very impressive.

Steve Jobs got up first and discussed how iPhone is taking over the mobile browser market. He sited that iPhone shows the most browser usage than any other phone. iPhone has already taken over the #2 spot in SmartPhone Marketshare.

Phil Schiller came up and discussed the Enterprise model. The biggest part of that model is the control an IT department has over the phone. Being able to push Exchange to the phone is awesome, however, during the demonstration they showed how IT can protect their data by locking the phone.

Scott Forstall came up on stage and talked about SDK. He discussed how Facebook and Bank of America have developed some great applications for a better mobile experience. Scott then talked about how the SDK is available to all 3rd party developers. Ease of use, language options and aspect monitoring were some big tools that could help in the building of a powerfull iPhone app.

Once the application is created, it can be put on Apples new online store - aptly named “App Store”. iTunes will also have an option to download apps. The App store will also keep tabs on the updates of those programs. The developer gets 70% of the revenue. If it’s free, then Apple will not charge for the program.

To further development, Apple announced an iPhone simulator so a developer can really see what’s going on without using their iPhone.

They asked engineers to develop a program without seeing the SDK. Travis Boatman from EA came up to talk about a game they created using the Excellarator - the ability to tilt the iPhone and having the character move with you. Chuck Dietrich from salesforce.com came up and showed a platform application to inform the sales staff of what has been and what needs to be accomplished.

Rizwan Sattar from AOL came up to introduce AIM for iPhone. Glen Keighley from epocrates showed off a drug lookup list which will detail the full list of drug information. Apples SQL light was integrated to reinovate the program. Glen stated this only took an hour to develop.

Finally, Ethan Einhorn from Sega brought another game to the iPhone. Sega also used the Excellarator to move the character. Sega underestimated the graphics and had to adjust.

Before they wrapped up the event, John Doerr from kpcb.com came up and announced that they will have a fund for “Entrepreneurs” of 100 Million dollars. It will be an investment into the future Googles and Apples.

All in all it was an impressive meeting. The iPhone (and the iPod Touch) will have some great additions to incorporate into any business. It might just be the single most powerful phone on the market come the end of 2008. The development bounty - just like Androids - will bring a lot of interest. However I think the ease of use to the SDK kit will bring even more developers.

There are some things still concerning. 3G was not discussed. Also, even though the touch screen is pretty impressive, I think Apple might want to look in either making a model with a numeric keypad, or a slider keyboard. Nonetheless, the iPhone is on the right track to get full productivity out of a handheld appliance. This might just be the end of a PC era - to an extent.

Watch the video here

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Today in the Gym I was watching a report that Apple iPhone was challenging Blackberry for market share in the corporate world. I agreed with the report – Apple has a better user interface than the Blackberry, Blackberry is too expensive in their messaging systems and an iPhone looks a lot better than a Blackberry device.

But then I got to thinking about it. Is this really news? I mean, yeah – we’ve got one company trying for a niche that another company has. However what company hasn’t tried to emulate or compete with another company’s corner-hold before?

Apple has been the underdog for many years. iTunes and iPods are really what broke Apples’ shell and put them on the forefront of something. Even though iPhone is not there just yet, Apple really shows how cutting edge technology should look.

At one time or another, a company is an underdog. How many people remember when Microsoft came to power? What was the leading company before Cisco took the reins?  Google wasn’t the first #1 search engine: Google didn’t even start until 1998 whereas the web started in 1991. And no, it wasn’t Yahoo, either. WebCrawler, Lycos, Excite and Dogpile were a few of the favorites back then.

 If we look at the phone market, names like LG didn’t show up until later. In the earlier days, you most likely had a Nokia phone, or a Motorola phone.  Before Dell came on to the scene, you had IBM Compaq or Packard Bell computers. In 1996 Dell overtook Compaq in the Personal Computer market. And where is Compaq nowadays?

To be the “New kid on the block” is not a uncommon occurrence. To take over a market from another is once again, not a new occurrence. Keeping that status – well, that might be tougher to do.

So let’s go back to the iPhone/Blackberry issue. What can Apple do to really rival this product?

First of all, Apple needs to better integrate into Microsoft – for you are most likely going to connect to Microsoft servers. Blackberry’s biggest issue was that you had to purchase a Blackberry server – which up until a couple months ago was a real expensive acquisition.  IT Admins have enough to worry about. Another server to handle email should not be one of them.

Apple’s biggest issue is simply “3^rd Generation” – Otherwise known as “3G”. Even Steve Wozniak says an Apple iPhone missed the mark when they didn’t put this into the phone.

In a nutshell, 3G is to phones as Digital Cable is to TV. If you don’t have cable, then you have a set that could possibly get 100 channels, but only have 5-6. 2G would be like having Extended Basic Cable and 3G is the full blown Digital – 500 channels.

Steve Jobs answered why there was no 3G in Sept 2007 - It was a Power Hog. The iPhone has a 8 hour talk-time phone. 3G would suck that down to 2.5 to 3 hour range. Instead Apple took stock in making the phone with a powerful WiFi system.

AT&T says that a 3G iPhone is planned for sometime this year. That is, if 3G can curb its power appetite. However, Apple should really just bite the bullet if it doesn’t and make an iPhone with either a larger battery, or with a “3G switch”. Turn it on and off at will so if you need the ability, you have it.

The biggest thing would be to have the iPhone customizable. IT Admins like it when they can control the system. It’s not because they get pleasure in it – it’s because if they know what is on a system, then they can better troubleshoot if there is a problem – especially in mobile phones, for the problems don’t occur in the office, they occur out in the field.

 For instance – lets say you have a corporate computer at home and decide to install Webshots on it. Once installed, your computer starts acting slow. When you call your in house tech support, are you going to tell them you installed Webshots? Most likely not. Sometime because you just don’t think about it, other times because you don’t want to hear a lecture on how Webshots is not “Corporate software”.

Customizable interfaces mean tailoring to a company can really boost production. Some companies run their own specialized apps that shouldn’t get out to the public. These apps make corporations millions – if not billions of dollars.

When I worked at the Department of Revenue, we talked about making home assessments something an appraiser can do on a laptop. At that time the appraiser would write down the info, snap analog pictures and then come back to the office to input all the data. Imagine if they had an application that would work on an iPhone. The assessment would be done in the time they can walk through the building – including pictures. No need to go back to any office.

In today’s’ corporate world, we are always seeing one company go after another. It’s all about standing on top of the hill an pronouncing yourself king. However, some people miss the top because they are too concerned with mundane details that could  propel them. After all, the premise of “King of the Hill” is to expect that someone is trying to knock you off. And someone will do that eventually.

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-511b01904537b65efbeedeb80bde4a5d}

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I remember when I got my first MP3. It was 1999, and I was pulling it from a P2P site that doesn’t exist anymore. That, well, and the entire collection of photo shopped Brittany Spears pictures. Back then, rights were being trampled and we did it because we didn’t know better.
Nowadays, we have people right and left telling us that downloading music is not legal. Some people have turned to legal methods of music acquisition – 99 cents per song, or through a subscription service like Napster or Rhapsody. Others decided to take their chances and continue downloading and trading music. And because of this, companies have begun the attempt to curb the illegal download of such music. But as they did that, both artists and consumers rights were getting trampled, which lead us to ask the question: Does DRM actually work?

There are two terms in electronic music that always make the general public shutter. Those terms are RIAA and DRM. While the RIAA is attacking downloading of music, DRM is a process that allows people to listen if they have properly acquired rights. Some rights could be set to listen free for a certain timeframe; others can be to pay for the right to listen.

DRM stands for “Digital Rights Management” and in one way or another has been around for a long time, we just didn’t know anything about it. Pre-computer, the rights were whether you could copy the songs from tape or album to another source. In terms nowadays, it means whether you can copy your MP3’s to other devices like an iPod. The concern is that you make copies for your other devices, and then you have 5 copies, so you give one to a friend.

Of course, DRM is more than just music. Movies, books on tape, coverage of an event, printing of a flyer or even a recording of any sound can be covered in DRM. Original work should have reciprocation to the creator. Think of it like this – You go to a nightclub and there is a cover charge. Some find a back way in to avoid paying, others will try to stay past bar time to continue partying. Yet the Bouncer is there to stop those who don’t abide by the rules.

In theory, DRM is a good concept. However, in practice is where things get a little cloudy. For instance, if a consumer purchases a song, they might want to listen to it on other forms of media. Therefore they download the song to an MP3 player, or burn a CD of the music. With DRM controlling the license, the consumer might not be able to move the item from one device to another. Where this gets problematic is when the user wants to back up their data to another source. If they can’t, then their primary source breaks down, they might end up losing the original and have to repurchase the same item again.

These issues have changed some distributor’s views. Steve Jobs requested in 2007 for the recording industry to discontinue the current practice of DRM control. ITunes had begun selling non-DRM music for a slightly larger price. Just recently, Sony had announced its intention of pulling all DRM music off their site with a “Platinum MusicPass” subscription.

So is DRM in the music realm dead and why isn’t it dead for movies as well?
For movies, the answer is (at least right now) simpler; there isn’t that many transferring data around. As people start learning how to copy movies to home servers and portable devices, this will once again be an issue. And production companies are working with top tech to allow flexibility of movies without losing the rights.

As for DRM in music, it’s not totally dead. There are still a lot of companies out there that use DRM. And eventually through understanding, the technology will get better where the question of DRM is not so much in the forefront. You will be able to download to your other sources without issue.

It’s a far cry from back when I downloaded music from that P2P. Today, I have a Rhapsody account. I can listen to any type of music at any time and there are only a couple instances where an artists’ music is not on the site. We do need to be concerned on artists’ rights though. If you build something, you would want to get paid for it - the artist should also get that same right.

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