Will iPhone 3.0 Spoil Microsoft's MIX?
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News Commentary. If MIX09 organizers aren't pissed about today's iPhone 3.0 preview event, they should be. |
They've been planning MIX09, which officially kicks off tomorrow, for at least year. MIX is one of Microsoft's showcase developer events. This should be a big developer news week for Microsoft.
But unexpectedly, on Thursday, Apple sent out invitations for an iPhone 3.0 event today. Since Microsoft's event is called MIX, I can't resist cooking metaphors. It's like Microsoft was baking a cake, and Apple plopped into the mix as an unwanted ingredient. The Apple flavor is consuming, overpowering. It changes the cake's flavor.
I predict that today's Apple event is going to upstage MIX09—it already has. Look at the weekend's speculation about iPhone 3.0 features. Worse: All the buzz yesterday about copy-and-paste finally coming to iPhone.
Copy and paste? A product deficiency is Apple news of the day? What is this, "Life on Mars"? ABC remade the BBC cop drama for American TV. The main character has an accident and wakes up in 1973. Life is so different, it's like he has gone to another planet. Did we all go to sleep in 2009 and wake up in 1973? Xerox PARC showed off cut-and-paste in 1974 and 1975, and Apple incorporated the capability into its PC operating systems in the early 1980s.
Copy-and-paste is no innovation. PC operating systems have had it for decades. If Apple could do copy-and-paste in 1981, why the hell not 2009? For iPhone. I dunno which is the greater lunacy—that iPhone has no copy-and-paste function or that the possibility of the feature made headlines yesterday. The latter is perhaps nuttier.
If copy-and-paste is so hyped before Apple announces anything, what happens in an hour when there is real news? For Microsoft, it's going to be Apple spoiling the MIX. Apple's mobile developer event will upstage Microsoft's Web developer event. Please, can the analysts, bloggers, developers and reporters restrain their excitement if Apple showcases other catch-up features. You know, like video capture, which is standard on most cell phones, but not iPhone.
If Apple makes any kind of netbook announcement, Microsoft MIX organizers might as well pass around the sleeping pills and hope they wake up in August 1995. Because the news of the week will be Apple's next-generation iPhone, available in a netbook-killing form factor. MIX will be, sadly, lost in the mix.
[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at gmail.com.]
Comments (26)
I don't think that Apple really cares about MIX, just like everyone else. They are trying to get the upper hand over the Palm Pre which is also due to be released soon.
What is the exciting news from MIX? If I know MS, it has all been leaked weeks before so we are basically looking at the release of IE 8.
https://content.visitmix.com/2009/Sessions/
What would the highlight be on that session list?
P.S. I think copy and paste is a lot harder than you make out, everything we use for copy and paste now is missing from the iPhone hardware. Mouse, caret, a right click, keyboard with modifier keys. To do it properly you need to think it through properly. It is easy for WM because they use resistive screens and they do not use gestures.
Posted by billybob | March 17, 2009 12:47 PM
Here's a thought - fix your previous incorrect articles and then move onto new stuff.
Posted by whatever | March 17, 2009 1:05 PM
Very good post, Billybob. Nothing more to add.
Posted by zato | March 17, 2009 1:08 PM
Here's a thought - fix your previous incorrect articles and then move onto new stuff.
Posted by whatever | March 17, 2009 1:09 PM
Come to think of it, there is "one more thing".
Here is the headline for the above article:
"Will iPhone 3.0 Spoil Microsoft's MIX?"
This headline is flamebait. It's written to attract the haters. To exploit the PC gamer/haters for the "Clicks". And a few Mac people will also stop by, for the same reason people watch Hannibal Lechter in movies or Hitler films. Evil/egotism is fascinating. You can't look away.
Tech blogs are exploiters of (make money from) hate and egotism. Microsoft actively uses tech blogs and this army of haters to maintain its monopoly.
Posted by zato | March 17, 2009 1:33 PM
If Apple really wanted to steal the show, they would announce an iPhone with a physical/"real" keyboard instead of the onscreen virtual keyboard.
Posted by Centerfield13 | March 17, 2009 1:56 PM
If Apple really wanted to steal the show, they would announce an iPhone with a physical/"real" keyboard instead of the onscreen virtual keyboard.
Posted by Centerfield13 | March 17, 2009 2:01 PM
Centerfield13 wrote:
"If Apple really wanted to steal the show, they would announce an iPhone with a physical/"real" keyboard instead of the onscreen virtual keyboard."
A Microsoft propagandist stops by to drop his little anti-iPhone turd.
Posted by zato | March 17, 2009 2:18 PM
Is the copy & paste typo in the copy & paste link ironic or what? Nice one Joe, very funny.
Posted by billybob | March 17, 2009 2:37 PM
Well put, all the Apple fan boys can't think straight when it comes to some of apples short commings. Cut and Paste has been a staple for the last 10 years on cell phones... but for apple fans and the media hype around it, they make it sound like the best thing since sliced bread.???
Posted by fluaf | March 17, 2009 3:22 PM
Everybody knows, that the only reason that Apple does not enter the netbook market, is that they only produce products with high profit margins for them. If they want to call a netbook an Iphone and sell it for $400 more, then I am sure they will find a lot of suckers buying them.
Posted by evan | March 17, 2009 3:27 PM
Well its not like Microsoft was actually going to deliver anything this week.
= IE8-> when did Gates say that would be available? summer 2006 or 2007.
= Silverlight 3-> vaporware, boring vaporware at that. Yep, WPF is going to be the markup language of choice any day now, you just wait and see.
= Visual Studio 2010: boring, so boring that they had to latch onto jQuery to give some excitment.
= Azure-> have they gotten that back on line yet?
Let me know when they release some production code. If its exciting I'll call my friends about it, assuming my Windows Mobile 6.5 phone is available by then.
Posted by Phil | March 17, 2009 3:59 PM
Well its not like Microsoft was actually going to deliver anything this week.
= IE8-> when did Gates say that would be available? summer 2006 or 2007.
= Silverlight 3-> vaporware, boring vaporware at that. Yep, WPF is going to be the markup language of choice any day now, you just wait and see.
= Visual Studio 2010: boring, so boring that they had to latch onto jQuery to give some excitment.
= Azure-> have they gotten that back on line yet?
Let me know when they release some production code. If its exciting I'll call my friends about it, assuming my Windows Mobile 6.5 phone is available by then.
Posted by Phil | March 17, 2009 4:01 PM
Maybe this is what M$ is going deliver or talk about next week:
Latest Conficker worm gets nastier
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/security/0,39044215,62052227,00.htm
"The authors of the latest variant of the Conficker worm are upping the ante against security vendors who are working to stop the spread and threat of the persistent program.
Conficker.C shuts down security services, blocks computers from connecting to security Web sites, and downloads a Trojan. It also is programmed to begin connecting to 50,000 different domains on April 1 to receive updated copies or other malware, as opposed to connecting to 250 domains a day as previous versions are doing, Ben Greenbaum, senior research manager for Symantec Security Response, said on Friday.
The authors of the code are "strengthening their hold on their collection of infected machines at the same time they are attempting to strengthen their ability to control those machines by moving to 50,000 domains," he said."
--------------------------------------------------
Yep, more Window$ Malware.
Posted by chips b malroy | March 17, 2009 5:26 PM
The terrible, horrible, no good, lousy missing cut-and-paste has apparently not been a problem for some 30 million people and now it's "fixed." Sometimes a "feature" or lack thereof, has nothing to do with a product's excellence.
(Before the corrections start, I'm including iPod touches in my 30 million figure.)
And yes, Apple probably didn't even know MIX existed and I doubt they timed this with any thing else in mind except to get apps ready for the release of some new hardware this summer.
Posted by Synthmeister | March 17, 2009 5:52 PM
The terrible, horrible, no good, lousy missing cut-and-paste has apparently not been a problem for some 30 million people and now it's "fixed." Sometimes a "feature" or lack thereof, has nothing to do with a product's excellence.
(Before the corrections start, I'm including iPod touches in my 30 million figure.)
And yes, Apple probably didn't even know MIX existed and I doubt they timed this with any thing else in mind except to get apps ready for the release of some new hardware this summer.
Posted by Synthmeister | March 17, 2009 5:53 PM
The Blackberry runs multiple applications at one time and supports copy/cut/paste between them. In fact, the way it runs applications and switches between them reminds me very much more of how the Apple Mac works than how a PC running Windows or Linux works. For instance, unless you specifically Quit the application from its app window, exiting it using the End key just pushes its window into the background but leaves the application running. And re-selecting a running application just show its current window. Just like a Mac, but with no mouse. ;-)
I'm told that the iPhone doesn't support copy/paste and multiple running applications because its design heritage is from the iPod and not the Mac. That would make perfect sense (well, to programmers, anyway. To non-programmers, it sounds like Apple doesn't know which end is up).
For the announcement to make big exciting news, the iPhone must be VERY popular and/or VERY locked-in. Otherwise, iPhone users would just jump ship. It's as if the iPhone is "absolutely perfect, except for this one thing."
It reminds me of the huge outcry for a Windows version of Photoshop. It wasn't all that long ago (to an old fart like me, anyway) that Adobe released Photoshop on Mac and on Unix (Silicon Graphics Indigo running Irix) but NOT on Windows. The Windows world begged and begged, as they already had nearly every application other than Photoshop running on Windows. Sometime about then, Microsoft put in serviceable font, color, and print support that was worthy of a high-end application like Photoshop, Adobe did the port, and now most the world has long forgotten that Photoshop ran on Unix quite a while before it ran on Windows.
Posted by Philosopher | March 17, 2009 5:56 PM
Joe, perhaps you could ask Apple to run the timing of their events past you, to ensure that they don't accidentally upset you and your Microsoft buddies.
Posted by Barry Crockett | March 17, 2009 6:45 PM
Will iPhone 3.0 Spoil Microsoft's MIX?
Lets hope so LOL
Posted by hiwaystar | March 17, 2009 7:04 PM
Will iPhone 3.0 Spoil Microsoft's MIX?
Lets hope so LOL
Posted by hiwaystar | March 17, 2009 7:06 PM
The main issue with copy & paste was not the UI as that was probably set long ago, but security, as iPhone apps are sandboxed (unlike on the Mac or Windows PCs), and copy & paste serves as an open avenue from one app to another.
As long as the apps were written by Apple, it's not a big deal but for Apple-vetted 3rd party apps to get that ability requires that Apple be sure that it can spot a rogue app that might use C&P to mess up another app.
Posted by mark | March 17, 2009 9:30 PM
The main issue with copy & paste was not the UI as that was probably set long ago, but security, as iPhone apps are sandboxed (unlike on the Mac or Windows PCs), and copy & paste serves as an open avenue from one app to another.
As long as the apps were written by Apple, it's not a big deal but for Apple-vetted 3rd party apps to get that ability requires that Apple be sure that it can spot a rogue app that might use C&P to mess up another app.
Posted by mark | March 17, 2009 9:31 PM
The main issue with copy & paste was not the UI as that was probably set long ago, but security, as iPhone apps are sandboxed (unlike on the Mac or Windows PCs), and copy & paste serves as an open avenue from one app to another.
As long as the apps were written by Apple, it's not a big deal but for Apple-vetted 3rd party apps to get that ability requires that Apple be sure that it can spot a rogue app that might use C&P to mess up another app.
Posted by mark | March 17, 2009 9:34 PM
As always, Apple has great timing.
Posted by Neil Anderson | March 17, 2009 11:03 PM
Rather than competing with Apple, MS have decided to make this years IE presentation a comedy event.
They will be showing classics like "Creating value with IE8" and the epic farce "Trustworthy Browsing in Internet Explorer 8" rounding off with "Compatibility & Migration" and "Browser War 2.0". Just like IE, there will be regular breaks.
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/03/17/ie8-firestarter-event-on-march-26th.aspx
Posted by billybob | March 18, 2009 7:01 AM
Will the iPhone announcement get more "air time" than MIX. Very probably.
Will the announcement spoil MIX? Very probably not.
MIX is venue specifically targeted are web and UX designers using Microsoft technologies. Both the audience attending, or the people following the webcasts are not going to get any the less out of it because Apple decribed the features of a future OS.
No doubt it's too much to expect the "Microsoft Watch" journo to actually attend the thing, then report on what's said, when it's far easier to sit at home and churning out irrelevant crap like this.
Posted by NickH | March 18, 2009 9:50 AM