What were you expecting, the PS3?

It’s Saturday, the day afer the iPhone was released, and the iPhone is still available.

Although AT&T is saying the device is nearly sold out in its stores, a quick look at the Apple website shows that the iPhone has not only failed to sell out - it’s still available at, by my count, every single Apple store nationwide.

The Apple fanboys who camped out for days outside the apple store aren’t looking so smart right now, are they?

They should have read Japadamus - we called this on Thursday.

Sometimes Apple products make people do crazy things?

For iPhone mania? to end?

Yes, we’re just 20 hours or so away from the debut of the iPhone, and an end - or at least a decrease - in the round the clock coverage that the phone has been getting.

I just don’t see the iPhone selling out like the PS3, Wii or XBox 360. I mean, people are camping out already, but really, it’s a lot harder to go out and buy a cellphone that people think. I say chill out a bit and visit the Apple store this weekend. Don’t get mixed up in the fray on Friday with the Apple fanboys.

Plus there are 3 million iPhones available at launch. If you can’t get it on Friday, you can order it online or at an Apple store for delivery within a week or so.

There has been some good news that has emerged in recent days:

• The iPhone will integrate with Outlook for calendar and contact synchronization.
• Users don’t have to wait in the apple store for activation - you active the iPhone at home. Thank god.
• You can check the availability of the iPhone in different stores here, so you don’t have to spend hours camping out in like like an asshole.
• Battery life is respectable. the NY Times reports that the battery will last through a day or more of average use.
• Possibly some support for Exchange?

But then again, there’s the bad:

• No stereo Bluetooth. WTF?! For a super modern world changing phone, it’s surely missing some very basic features.
• No custom ringtones. Again, WTF?! AT&T could have made billions selling ringtones of steve jobs reading excerpts of Apple’s 10-K.
• Plans starting at $60. This is kind of meh - not horrible, but you will be paying a lot per month for this thing.
• The keyboard sounds pretty shitty.
• No cutting, coping or pasting. What’s going on there Jobs? Forget those features along with the right button?
• No instant messaging.
• No Flash and no Video. That’s why they made such a big deal about YouTube support.
• The battery, as is Apple’s normal policy, is unremovable. So in two years, you’ll have to take your iPhone in to have the battery replaced. Or more likely, buy version 2 of the iPhone.

It’s a tough call. I mean, the thing looks f’ing nice for sure. And the interface is unbeatable. But no third party apps? No video? EDGE only? sigh. It’s a tough call.

All in all though, it’s impressive that Apple got the iPhone out in June (cutting it close) to being with. And all things being equal, there’s nothing like it available today. Jobsy bet the company on this one. I don’t think it’ll be a run away success, but there are enough Apple lovers out there to support such a risky investment.

In any case, after the news dies down on friday night, we’re bound to see reports of iPhone problems, crashes, bugs etc. And lots, and lots of broken iPhone screens.

Tired of iPhone news yet?

Engadget has a few more details about the upcoming device. I can’t wait until friday so we can finally do away with these half-baked preview articles.

Anyway, the Engadget article bemoans the onscreen keyboard, saying the the iPhone is “just not a business product.”

Other notes, the touchscreen requires hard presses and is hard to get used to, and YouTube didn’t work over Cingular’s EDGE network at all, meaning you need WiFi, not a cellular connection. And, as expected the browser is slow over the EDGE connection.

All bad news for apple, but I bet apple fanboys will not be deterred by the news.

A couple days ago at Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference, Steve Jobs announced that the iPhone would support third party applications. Sweet, right? After all, the lack of an SDK for the iPhone was a key bone of contention for iPhone critics.

But there’s a catch.

Apple won’t allow developers to create applications to be installed on the iPhone. Instead, as Jobs outlined, the iPhone will support ‘Web 2.0′ applications through its Safari browser.

Jobs was in the all spin zone, saying that developers can “write amazing web 2.0 and Ajax applications that look exactly, and behave exactly, like the applications on the iPhone.” According to Jobs, these applications can “seamlessly access iPhone’s services, including making a phone call, sending an email and displaying a location in Google maps.”

This statement needs a bit of translation:

Steve Jobs is giving developers permission to create websites.

While Web 2.0 and Ajax sound fancy, let’s be honest, these terms mean websites - new and trendy websites, true, but websites nonetheless. Plain as that. The iPhone, as we all know, has a safari browser. Safari, as we all know, can browse websites - even new web 2.0 websites. So, what is the news again?

The fact that Jobs put this into his keynote is insulting. Let me put it this way, if Jobs said nothing, millions of Apple geeks would still immediately start creating websites optimized for the iPhone’s screen on June 29th anyway. To tout this as a feature or as a development is a weak attempt for Jobs to play the media and placate Apple fans.

And the news about making a phone call, or sending an e-mail from these applications? That’s already available now, from distinctly web 1.0 sites. Google’s mobile search site, for example, allows users to place phone calls - and nearly any website can launch a compose e-mail screen.

What the iPhone needs is a SDK that will allow developers to create iPhone applications. Simple as that. How long will it take Apple to learn this lesson?

This weekend Apple confirmed the release date of the iPhone in a commercial that aired during 60 minutes.  The date?  Friday, June 29th.

I had predicted that the iPhone was going to miss it’s June release window, but looks like Apple is going to make it by a day.  Now we just have to see how long apple fanboys will line up outside of the apple store to get one.

At the JavaOne conference in San Francisco, Sun Microsystems announced plans to roll out a high end cellphone built on the Java platform.  The phone is expected to compete with other all-in-one devices like the iphone and Blackberry.  The phone will feature a full desktop operating system.

This “innovation” by Sun seems to me like a sad attempt at boosting its stock price.  Sun as a company has been in the doldrums for years.  Java never really took off like they expected it would, and with the introduction of all these Web 2.0 applications, it looks as those Just-in-time computing via a java applet is going to be a distant memory.  If it wasn’t for its huge debt load, lack of new product growth, diminishing margins in the server business, Sun probably would have merged already with a larger, sexier company.  I’ll be following the jphone closely, but my guess is that its not going anywhere.

USA Today ran an interview with Steve Ballmer the CEO of Microsoft.  Some interesting tidbits from the interview:

• There will be no Zune phone

Q: People get passionate when Apple comes out with something new — the iPhone; of course, the iPod. Is that something that you’d want them to feel about Microsoft?

A: It’s sort of a funny question. Would I trade 96% of the market for 4% of the market? (Laughter.) I want to have products that appeal to everybody.

Now we’ll get a chance to go through this again in phones and music players. There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.

In the case of music, Apple got out early. They were the first to really recognize that you couldn’t just think about the device and all the pieces separately. Bravo. Credit that to Steve (Jobs) and Apple. They did a nice job.

But it’s not like we’re at the end of the line of innovation that’s going to come in the way people listen to music, watch videos, etc. I’ll bet our ads will be less edgy. But my 85-year-old uncle probably will never own an iPod, and I hope we’ll get him to own a Zune.

Q: When is your next operating system coming out?

A: That I won’t share with you. Not because we’re not hard at work on that; I want to let the team do their job, figure out what the release looks like. I guarantee you it won’t be four or five years.

Q: You mean sooner?

A: Yes, absolutely. 

Business 2.0’s Apple blog had an interesting article about another “potential” Apple design problem for the iphone.  They reported that early beta users have commented on the relative slipperiness of the overall device which may make it more prone to dropping.  With a $500 price tag, this may worry some users (and parents) that you might see your fortunes stylishly bouncing on the ground.

The article did clear up one previous rumor which Japadamus.com reported on earlier, the iphone battery life.  The same beta testers quoted about the slipperiness issue, also commented that the phone lasted longer than 5 hours on talk mode, and over 14 hours on listening/music playing mode.  Wow, that’s pretty good!

Gizmodo is reporting that they have an inside source that is saying that iphone will be delayed. Although I’m personally negative in regards to the iphone launch being completed on time, I have to admit that this recent publicity seems fishy. Anyone that follows Apple stock may have noticed that the stock sold off sharply this past Monday, does this mean something? I personally don’t know but it appears that many reporters, Gizmodo, Dvorak have been reporting potential future delays based on comments from unnamed sources. Is this evidence of a bear raid by short sellers? Very likely. But that isn’t necessarily a negative in itself, remember that short sellers provide a very important function in the marketplace they provide liquidity.  Hopefully Apple management will step up and put a lot of these rumors to rest.

Apple announced today that the new Leopard operating system will be delayed to divert more resources towards getting the iphone ready for a June launch. BetaNews is saying that this move by Apple is really a smokescreen to hide the larger issue which is that Leopard isn’t anywhere near being ready. What do you guys think? I think BetaNews might have a point, maybe some readers in the MAC development community know more about this situation. Is it just Haterade? We shall find out in June.