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Apple, Inc. – A Superior Software Company Clad In Beautiful, Must-have, Exteriors.

By: Zamboanga.com Editorial - June 26, 2007

Apple, Inc. is first and foremost a software company.  Period.  Exclamation point!

Sure, it created the computer hardware standard that placed itself on the world map as Apple Computer.  However, it was its evolution into the operating system (OS) software that made their machines superior products versus their competition.  Moreover, it was Apple’s OS design that helped its #1 software competitor steal its cutting edge for decades now in the form of Microsoft Windows.

We all know by now the story of how Microsoft “copied” Apple’s main brain, its OS, while Steve & Co. were proudly displaying their computer and OS’s beautiful, revolutionary makings, to Bill & Co.  What happened afterwards has been dogging iSteve for decades now, and his reincarnation as Apple’s leader is spearheading the manner in how Apple is dogmatically safeguarding its main brain from exterior influence.  They have learned their very expensive lesson all too well, and iSteve is never going to let it happen again.

Apple Computer was Steve Job’s vision, but the Apple OS was Steve Wozniak’s brain child.  He is the grand daddy of Apple’s core that somehow lost its proper place in the marketplace, but is once again finding its way back to where it belongs – at the forefront of a second revolution: Apple, Inc.  Steve Jobs can now be considered the grand master of the new Apple OS X when he sold NeXT Computer to Apple, and Apple absorbed NeXT's futuristic Unix based object-oriented OS design as their very own.

Apple's Mac products and their beautiful, must-have designs, are what attract customers to their purchases, but it’s the internal brain OS that’s keeping them hooked to the products.  It was a staid model for the lumbering “computer” company until its people decided to try and give its roots another chance at finding Apple’s proper place in the world.  Re-enter the humbled Steve Jobs and his years of reflection on what went wrong with the Apple of his eye and how he got another chance to fix it.

With the iPhone, Apple is setting its goal on a much higher ambition than anyone cares to even ponder – changing the entire global communication network as it is modeled today and use its new superior operating system OS X as the omnipresent system that interconnects our entire computerized world as we know it.  Telecommunications, television, video, music, software, internet, games, and the myriad of applications that make them all connected in a simple, logical way that takes away people’s annoyance towards the business model being used today, all because of the intentional stealth iSteve & Apple instilled on their magic formula: the current OS X and the upcoming futuristic OS X Leopard!

iSteve is targeting Microsoft’s Mobile software – heck, he’s targeting MS Windows directly!  The exterior designs and claddings of Apple's supporting hardware products are just a pretense for the real battle of superiority: the software that perfectly runs all these computerized consumer products.  Microsoft will respond soon.  If the iPhone is a smashing success, Bill & Co. will respond much sooner.  However, it will be a little too late.

The iPhone is nothing more than an Apple pseudonym that was borrowed from the dedicated public who coined the term iPhone before Apple even considered it and was forced to use it because Apple’s die-hard fans willed it to be, even at the expense of Apple being sued for copyright infringement because it failed to listen to its profit core – the Apple die-hards.  iSteve, learning that late is even better that never, decided it was appropriate to call Apple’s brand new mini super-computer the iPhone.  He knew all too well that the Microsoft-dominant consumer market did not trust Apple Computer and their elitist computers and software, and the high price it takes to be in that category.  They like their Microsoft-controlled world of computers, no matter how much they hate to reboot their computers every time their software fails.  It’s like an old blanket that they’ve grown accustomed to, and no Apple can entice them to commit a sin in abandoning their comfort zone.  Well, maybe not, but enter the iPhone and the balance of trust will change.

So, even when the experts saw what iSteve was dishing out to them was clearly a mini/hand-held computer (if it acts and works like a computer, it must be a computer!), iSteve expertly denied that possibility and emphasized it was just a phone, a beautiful phone, with extra bells and whistles.  Well, he has succeeded in fooling everyone, even the experts.  However, slowly but surely, before the grand unveiling of the iPhone, iSteve kept announcing more features that the iPhone will have: a full version of its superior web-browser, Safari, and a partnership with the biggest threat to Microsoft’s dominance in the software industry – Google, Inc.  Also, iSteve salivated programmers’ interest in allowing them to use Safari to create whatever web-based programs/widgets (Web 2.0 applications) they want for the iPhone.  Well, Safari is part of the hunting ground of the Leopard, due to arrive from its hibernation in October 2007.  Apple’s partnership with Google will bring, guess what?, Google Apps into the iPhone fore, and doesn’t the Word processor and Spread sheet work in a computer environment?  Isn’t Safari an Apple OS X?  Well…

Not so quick, hombre.  Although programmers are a little frustrated that they’re limited to creating add-ons for the iPhone through Safari only, that situation is merely ephemeral.  iSteve is infuriated that he can’t release the full power of his new mini, hand-held super-computer, dubbed the iPhone, until his much delayed release of the OS X Leopard happens in late October 2007!  Until then, his hands are tied.  When Leopard is released, there surely will be a process where Apple will allow a full version of Leopard to be installed into the iPhone computer and possibly announce for the Christmas season an opening for iPhone to accept additional programmed goodies from third parties, with very close integration and control by Apple.  iSteve will never allow his mistake from a quarter century ago to ever happen again.  The Leopard will never be allowed to escape from the Safari ever again.  It is hopeful that programmers out there understand this iSteve mantra.  It’s nothing personal.  iSteve has this one Window of Opportunity, pun intended, and he will not screw it up like before.  It’s now or never!  Apple can accomplish what Microsoft has been trying to do for many years now – control our interconnected world of computerized multi-media platforms and beyond.  Apple is set to take its first bite at that vision with its iPhone computer, its current superior OS X interface integration, and future OS X Leopard software update/upgrade.

So, the iPhone computer will allow seamless music downloads and integration from iTunes - maybe.  Well, what exactly is iTunes?  It’s nothing but the sound of what the big cats of Apple do – the OS X Tiger and neXT gen Leopard.  iTunes is simply superior software created by the best software company in the world.  The music, videos, movies, and whatever profit-making stuff Apple throws in iTunes, are all managed expertly by Apple's superior software program.

AppleTV is another superior software program sheathed in a beautiful yet simple box.  It is well on its way to capture another segment of the consumer market that Microsoft tried to influence with its software, but has failed.  Again, AppleTV’s software allows it to combine a lot of valuable household multi-media gadgets, gaining the trust and confidence of a highly skeptical public that’s used to so much promise from bigger fish in the market that fail to meet their hoopla.  Apple is changing that skepticism and providing optimism to millions of consumers, aligning itself as a real friend of the household business.  That business is worth hundreds of billions of dollars, and is in direct competition with Bill’s Microsoft.  iSteve knows Bill all too well.  Payback is sweet.  An Apple a day helps keep dr. Bill away…

10 million iPhones sold by 2008 according to iSteve?  Well, we predict it will be double that total or even more.  Why?  Teenagers!

Teenagers will help propel that sales projection beyond Apples’ wildest dreams.  It will surely astound all the skeptics.  The teenage buying power is not even being considered by these so called experts of industry.  Teenagers are the main barometer of the movie industry, and they too are the barometer of the cell phone industry.  They pretty much helped resuscitate Apple’s teetering “computer” business with the incredible success of the iPod and its iPod family, along with its, once again, superior software program.  Teenagers have also helped influence the design of automobiles and airplanes in their implementation of built-in iPod connectivity for their products, and the older generation who grasped their fascination with the Apple icon.

Experts dismiss the teenage population's intrinsic capacity to move an entirely new segment of the cell phone industry, the so-called high-end market.  One thing is for sure – teenagers are much more advanced in their technical know-how than their older counterparts.  They grew up in the computer generation and they understand computers very well.  They understand the capacity of the iPhone computer.

If you compare the iPhone's selling price to the other hand-held, phone-enabled computers out there today, costing about the same as the iPhone and upwards of $700-$1,000, the iPhone computer is a bargain.  So, come Friday, June 29, 2007, those older, skeptical consumers will be left out in the dust from the mad dash towards being first to grab the limited availability of the iPhone. 

Teenagers have an insatiable desire to have the best and the newest, whether it be a pair of $200 Nike shoes or a school car.  Most of them do not have to worry about paying rent or groceries when living with their parents and a summer job can easily net them enough money to buy the latest and greatest computer gadget in the entire history of the world – the iPhone!!!  They will camp outside the Apple and AT&T stores this week, just so they can have the coolest and baddest thing on this planet just in time for next school season.  Mom and Dad will probably chip in with their iPhone investment if they are allowed to touch and play with the iPhone, even with restraining jackets.  It’s that bad, dude!  It’s the Holy Grail of… everything consumeristic!  It’s hype!  Who cares?  The younger generation trust Apple and their omni-present iPods, so what’s the problem? 

iSteve… iPhone!

ET phone home… with iPhone.

Z-Blog: Update on iPhone Sales - 7/2/07

If all things were perfect, and the iPhone frenzy continues at the current sales pace, Apple will sell over 63 million iPhones in one year!  If the pace slows down by 1/6th the rate, then iSteve will meet his sales projection.  But, it is doubtful the sales of the iPhone will slow down by that much, so our initial projection of 20 million units is likely.  Wow!

Z-Blog: iPhone - We Told You So... It's the Apple Software! - 7/7/07

Beyond Components: It's All About the Software (PC World)

Aside from the multi-touch display and motion sensor/accelerometer, the iPhone turns out to have little else in terms of revolutionary components. However, the integration of the software with the hardware is entirely different. The level of thought put into interface design and software has been heretofore unseen in a cell phone. And that added touch that Apple brings to the table--the same touch that sparked thousands of people to queue up for the iPhone in advance of its launch--is much harder to put a price tag to.

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