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I think Eric Schmidt just made a thinly-veiled EPIC allusion at MacWorld: “I’ve had the privilege of joining the board and there’s a lot of relationships… if we merge the companies we can call it Applegoo — but I’m not a marketing guy.”

What think you? Can we take credit for that one?

January 9, 2007 / Uncategorized

22 comments

I think so. 🙂

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Yeah, I caught that. I don’t know that you can take credit for it in any meaningful way, but I think it’s fair to consider it a nice pat on the back (or a tip of the hat, if you will).

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Oh, who cares about your EPIC? I want an iPhone! 🙂

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Which, come to think of it, would be a great tool for the app at the end of EPIC 2015. Apple made a device that can really make that happen.

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Holy moley, YES! Seriously — especially given that the iPhone, like the Mac, is (I surmise) going to be an open platform that anybody can develop for — this is far, far more than a slick device. It’s a platform for whole new KINDS of applications. So cool.

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“In the Year 2000, humanity will unite and try to combine all countries into a single world nation. But everyone will back out at the last minute except for Canada and Peru. Enjoy your new country Cannapoo.”

I want an OpenMoko phone. Sure, iPhone is slicker, but Apple will probably DRM your contact list so you have to pay them every time you look up a number. Or maybe you can only charge the phone through a USB port and you have to install iPhoneTM software on your computer first…

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I agree, the OpenMoko looks super-sweet as well. But I don’t think the iPhone is going to be THAT crippled — I mean look at the iPod. It plays DRM’d content but it plays normal content too. And it’s eminently hackable!

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Yeah, maybe I was too harsh; a phone done by a software-savvy company is bound to be more hackable than the old stuff. I hope so. At least we know the software will be slick, even if you end up having to install Quicktime to download it or whatever.

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Ack, I don’t want to start SnarkMarket’s first ever (?!) flame war, but I can’t help myself. “Look at the iPod”: yeah, you have to install iTunes to put anything on the iPod. iTunes is bundled with Quicktime. You can’t take anything off the iPod and put it somewhere else.

IIRC, Microsoft went to court in the US and Europe (and lost) to defend bundling Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer with Windows. Look at OSX: you get Safari, iTunes, Quicktime. I generally like Apple products, but what’s the difference?

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Seems at least a little different: iTunes installs Quicktime b/c it needs it to run. I mean, tons of free, open-source apps install libraries that they need to run — what’s the diff? That Quicktime includes a player app?

Your point about the forced iPod/iTunes integration is a good one. But, you have to think of them as, in some ways, a single unified product. And I think what’s important is that iTunes allows you to put whatever content you like in your library. Compare this to Microsoft’s Media Center PCs, which — I kid you not — WILL NOT LET YOU stream un-DRM’d video to your TV.

I really have high hopes for the openness of the iPhone — one thing that distinguishes it from the iPod is its internet connectivity, and that implies to me that it’s going to have to be a lot more open and less ‘umbilical’ in its attachment to a particular Mac. But: Apple could prove me wrong.

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Yeah, 802.11 and data connection on iPhone is pretty sweet. Definitely painfully missing on the OpenMoko G1 (because no open source, small 802.11 solutions, as I understand it).

I think out of all Apple products iTunes is really the one that gets under my skin. Why should you need Quicktime to run iTunes? Why should you need iTunes to put music on the player? Why should you need iTunes to use the Apple music store?

There’s also something so painfully un-Unix about it, Darwin notwithstanding. If I want a music player and a cd ripper and a transcoder and a music visualization plugin and a cd burner and an http client and a media library manager I’ll install those things. Or if I want them all bundled together then hell, I’ll install iTunes. But why do I have to install iTunes?

Anyway, sorry for getting us into holy war territory, although I’m really not so anti-Apple. All I can say is if you really want to hear my full rant about Apple (or any other topic) let’s do it over a beer. The more beer, the longer the rant. I guarantee it.

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Hahahaha — fantastic.

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In retrospect, sorry for characterizing anything as a “holy war” when it was actually just me ranting the whole time unprovoked.

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Okay, here’s a question: iPhone is Cingular, but I thought now we’re allowed to unlock any phone we want, so will it be unlockable? (Who needs AIM or IRC when we have Snarkmarket?)

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dan says…

I’m with you, my brother!

IF… I can write my own applications, making use of the touchscreen, to manage contacts/web/media in any way that I see fit… then this is indeed a wondrous device, and let the rapture commence and carry the iFanatics among us away to a touchscreen heaven in the iSky.

HOWEVER… if I am forced to use Apple’s PIM system, forced to use iTunes for media, forced to use Safari as my internet gateway, and forced to use that wacky little qwerty touchscreen I saw demo’d for all of my characturial needs… then this will still be a rapture of a kind, for I have no doubt all the good little iBoys and iGirls will still slurp them up in their foolish lust, but it will be a false idol indeed to which they sell their souls, and beware the smell of sulfur as you twiddle away the hours rotating that cute web page to the right… now to the left… and to the right… and to the left… oooh, now back to the right! oooooh thats so neato ok left one more time…

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Fernando Paulsen says…

I don’t know if Eric Schmidt winked at Epic in Macworld. But I am absolutely sure that Michael Hirschorn, former editor of New York Magazine and Esquire, thinks high of Epic and is using it as model:

“If the twenty-first-century news business has a Zapruder film, it

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Okay, now it’s a holy war :). Fernando: commenting on topic, interesting strategy.

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Fernando Paulsen says…

You caught me. My Mac heart is not yet prepared to receive all kinds of blood types. It will be opened to all donors soon, no doubt about it. Hopefully not at the expense of quality and style.

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iSurrender.

😉

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Ooh, just in time, too: I was wrong about the iPhone. Dammit, Apple! So awesome and yet so un-awesome!

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Disappointing, but realistically the iPod was a closed design and now you can run the entire hardware package with an open source OS. That’s the advantage of having a product that takes over the entire market; it’s an obvious hack target.

Of course, starting open source is better. Here’s the newly released OpenMoko Manifesto. Although there are many disappointments (hardware not everything you could desire, release schedule behind original hopes), I am extremely psyched. Vision is obviously there, and it makes sense, and I really hope we can make it a success.

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I think we all know what needs to happen here.

Steve Jobs needs to be made to watch EPIC 2015, all the way to the end.

I also think he should start contributing to the comment discussion here. After all, this is clearly the best forum for these issues. Between seeing the movie and talking to all of us, Jobs could be turned around.

THEN EITHER — Apple will realize the human spirit is unbreakable and open up the iPhone to external apps;

OR — Apple will realize the human spirit will pay for this sort of thing and create its own awesome social connectivity app for iPhone

Rupert Murdoch saw EPIC 2014 and saw the light about the future of the media.

Murdoch also bought up MySpace. So this thing could go either way.

He also (and this is strictly unsourced) credits Matt and Robin with convincing him not to publish the OJ Simpson book. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but kudos to SloTho* all the same.

* That’s pronounced “slow toe.”

That is all.

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