It’s been a nostalgic few days, what with the Guardian leaving its old home, and me leaving the Guardian at the end of the week. Adding to the sense of change is the news Steve Jobs isn’t going to be doing his traditional keynote speech at San Francisco MacWorld Expo in January. Indeed, Apple says this will be the last time it attends the show. It’s the end of something; those keynotes were among the more entertaining episodes of my early career at the Guardian.

During my years on the paper I saw several of those “Stevenotes“, all of which were brilliant acts of salesmanship. They followed a pattern; wait to be let in, wait more, stare at a bare stage framed by vaguely sinister banners, listen to classic pop music, then more, then Jobs arriving – late and unheralded – on stage in jeans and black top. Then he’d do a presentation for two hours, his audience rapt. You could argue that his brilliance on stage was reinforced by an utterly adoring crowd, especially when he was speaking on his home turf in California. Once, a chap sat next to me (in the press seats) was apparently moved to heartfelt tears during Jobs’ launch of the new iPhoto application. Sobbing, he was, dabbing at his eyes with an old hankie.

But Jobs is, even under colder assessment, quite a draw, and ultimately his staying away will spell the death of the show and the quaint circus that surrounds it. That will be a bit of a shame. People will be sad that their post-holiday treat is gone, for the event is more of a festival than a trade show. Around it is, in essence, a fringe programme of launches, dinners, receptions and briefings to alternately report, book, blag and avoid, hosted by Mac vendors and Apple itself.

A personal highlight – and this perhaps is a measure of my inner geekery – was attending the Netters Dinner back in 2001. I was rather thrilled to meet its host Adam Engst, who wrote the manual to getting your Mac online in the early 1990s (even with his excellent book, it took me two weeks to work it all out) and I rather enjoyed the gathering’s computer club camaraderie. That year, Jobs took the wraps off the new titanium PowerBook, and launched a bit of software called iTunes. We all thought it cute, but around the table at Netters couldn’t really imagine digitising all our CDs.

More broadly, it was possible to gauge the health of the Mac economy through judging the size of the show, although most old-timers seemed to think things were on the slide. For the company, it really wasn’t – it was just that Apple’s morph into a consumer electronics company selling to a mass market, rather than a computer company selling into a tiny niche, meant the geek-packed show became less relevant.

With the paying attendees, frankly, mattering less to Apple, and we in the press ready to turn up to a special event at the merest hint of something shiny, even in my final year (2004) there were rumours swirling that Apple wanted its product release schedule to break free of the show dates.

And now, it appears, they’ve finally done it. The move has prompted a rush of stories that Jobs is, again, unwell, and even if there’s nothing particularly badly wrong it may be that – post cancer treatment – he’s simply not up to the intensive prep and physical ordeal of delivering the two hour SteveNote.

But Apple’s wanted out of MacWorld for years, we know. And it may also be that Jobs has realised – through December, traditionally the time when he starts pulling things together for the show – that he’s not got much to say. [Read more about Jobs' pre-keynote prep in this fascinating piece from back in 2006]

Speculation this year is that Apple won’t have a new product line to unveil, and it might just be that Jobs doesn’t fancy the usual build-up of hype, followed by post-keynote deflation among the fanboys and – new since this year – frenzied speculation about his health, gauntness and weight. (It’s tempting to think that, really, as Silicon Valley’s computer heroes enter middle and older age, the Valley ecosystem is going to have to deal with their mortality a little more maturely than it does at the moment. But that’s maybe another post.)

Like us all, Jobs and Apple is changing and moving on, and all we can do is look back and say it was fun while it lasted.

[Plus: an entertaining photogallery from the Guardian of Steve Jobs through the ages]

But – and at risk of sounding like a hopeless fanboy – my new iPhone is just wonderful – far better than anything I’ve had before, and better than I even expected. You don’t get it until you use it, and no number of geeky denouncements of shoddy camera quality or lack of 3G will, at this stage, change my mind.

Here’s why.

1. The iPhone makes internet use habitual: a combination of Safari’s usability and ability to properly display the real (not mobile) web, plus the all-you-can-eat data package, means I’ll browse with confidence when I need to get some information, and for entertainment when bored. This is a step up from any device that doesn’t have a full web browser, or a pay-as-you-go data tariff, where browsing is an expensive chore.

2. It doesn’t crash: Touch wood here – but every smartphone I’ve had crashes more regularly than a Premiership footballer in a Porsche. And a mobile phone that’s crashed is a brick – especially when, as in the case of a Windows Mobile-powered Orange SPV I once had – it would crash, without anything on the phone indicating it wasn’t working. I’d just wonder why I wasn’t getting any calls that day.

3. Battery life is excellent – even when browsing heavily, the iPhone is lasting longer than my rubbish old Nokia N80 did on standby.

4. Wifi that works – the iPhone’s wifi is, as you’d expect from Apple, a doddle to set up. That means the spread of Wifi, via the bundled Cloud connections and the other network I have access to, makes the cruddy 02 Edge connection less important. The iPhone’s seamless migration to Wifi is good news for both the user, who gets faster speeds, and the mobile network, which doesn’t have to carry all the traffic.

5. The small things: Like the way the music fades down when a call comes in, and back up when the call ends. It’s like a perfectly customised call-in show, where your friends are the callers and the music is your favourite songs.

I thought the iPhone could really change the smartphone world when it was first launched, but I now think I underestimated its impact. With the device already outselling Windows Mobile in the US (and miles ahead of Symbian) my initial prediction is already coming true.

Now, let’s look further: this could broaden the market for more powerful phones, tempting contract mobile users to the mobile web and causing other manufacturers – and other networks – to come up with gadgets that mimic some of its features, thus amplifying the effect. It could have quite an impact on mobile content.

Could the iPhone – not Facebook – turn out to be the most significant technology development of the year?

Well, I’m delighted to see that tonight’s Watchdog on BBC1 has caught the company out too. Show researchers were spun the insurance bobbins in three out of five stores they visited. Top effort – the show deserves credit for realising what was happening, and acting so quickly.

The retailer said there had been  “some element of confusion among an isolated number of sales consultants”. But the widespread online reports, and Watchdog’s findings, comes less than a year after the company was fined heavily for insurance mis-selling.

I’d love to know why so many salespeople are getting the insurance sales so similarly wrong, so consistently. And I’d love to know if Apple are going to continue letting this shower sell their lovely phone – because they’re tarnishing Apple’s brand, too.

I got mine from a Carphone Warehouse, where the experience wasn’t as polished as the device. In particular they – or at least the salesman in my nearest branch – were attempting to sell their hugely expensive insurance (just shy of £12 a month) to iPhone buyers, to cover theft, loss and damage.

I said I wouldn’t need any – I’ve got household insurance that would give me the same cover. The saleman’s retort was that, while my household insurance might be able to give me the replacement value of the phone, I wouldn’t be allowed to buy a new iPhone – unless I took out their insurance, which was the only one to allow replacement of the device. Yet that’s not true – at least, according to the apologetic woman on Carphone Warehouse’s insurance hotline.

I’ve yet to fully work out what Apple’s (or O2′s) replacement policy is. I don’t think it’s as was described to me in-store. What I do know is that Carphone Warehouse was fined heavily last year by the Financial Services Authority for mis-selling insurance policies on phones.

At the time Charles Dunstone, the company’s founder and CEO, claimed the company took “every aspect of service and administration very seriously.” But he said the financial regulator’s fine was “a bit like a sledgehammer to crack a nut.”

I wrote, here on Sunday and yesterday in the Guardian, about how Apple would use the success of the iPhone on a weaker network to leverage better terms from all the other networks, and thus successfully push for a reduction in the carriers’ role in the mobile value chain.

Open the paper today… and Richard Wray is writing about how 02 (a weaker network in the UK) will end up holding the exclusive iPhone rights in the UK because Vodafone – the market leader – is balking at Apple’s terms. Those terms? Revenue, and control.

Apple is going for a vertically integrated monopoly on an entire class of mobile device, just as it’s built with iPod. Given they have a reasonable chance of success, this starts to have quite profound, and very interesting, implications across a range of businesses. Not just mobile.

"By delivering on their promise, and changing the definition of a mobile
phone. That’s what the original iPod managed in the MP3 player world,
filled to that point with players of limited features, lame design and
duff PC integration.

The mobile phone industry is, of course, more mature than the MP3 player industry was in 2001. But it faces similar problems."

There’s more, of course.

(i) say something that’s distinctive, and not just the bald truth of the matter: this is a pretty good-looking device, feature rich, expensive, attached to a poor US mobile network, but somewhat-to-much better than anything trundled out by incumbent mobile phone makers.

(ii) attempt to paint a suitably all-conquering, Jobs-esque strategic masterplan that’ll make them look jolly smart if, in five years, the iPhone does manage to conquer all.

Here’s a few choice quotes – feel free to add your own in comments…

First, saying something contrary is always good copy:

“International research conducted by media agency Universal McCann has
concluded that Apple’s goal of selling 10m iPhones by the end of 2008
is too ambitious.
[...]
Report author Tom Smith, Universal McCann’s research manager for
Europe, the Middle East and Asia, said the trend for multiple devices
were a serious barrier for converged devices because users would not be
motivated to replace their existing gadgets.
‘The simple truth:
convergence is a compromise driven by financial limitations, not
aspiration. In the markets where multiple devices are affordable, the
vast majority would prefer that to one device fits all,’ Mr Smith added.”

… but all this overlooks the fact that Apple’s strategy is built around
building aspiration, not around technical features. Few iPhone buyers will be making a rational judgement on feature set when they buy one – brand, design and wow factor come first.

Another flaw of the Universal McCann approach: they’re asking people
what they want. If someone asked me if I’d like a converged device, I’d
think of my rubbish Nokia phone, or some ubergadget with a Motorola
riddle of an interface, and say “no thanks”.

Next: Is Apple’s sales target really “too ambitious”? Maybe, if this is only just another mobile launch.

Apple got good at completely changing perceptions of a class of device with iPod. As this News.com story from 2001 shows,
back at the launch of iPod analysts said the company was following
Sony’s lead, and warned the iPod was priced too high to succeed. But
the dynamics of the MP3 player market – dogged, to that point, by poor
PC integration and dodgy software and hardware design (sound familiar?)
- were completely changed by iPod. The iPod’s huge success wasn’t just because it was a bit better than the competition; it redefined what that kind of gadget should be.

[I should add I'm not claiming to have got it right back then myself; in reporting on the iPod launch in 2001
I only noted that their aspiration to corner 5% of the MP3 player
market was "a small share of a very small market". With hindsight, I do
think Apple really knew what they were doing then - their success was no
accident, but they obviously weren't going to tell everyone they were after a huge slice of the market to then vertically integrate with iTunes. Which is all the more reason to pay attention with iPhone
now, which has a target of only 10% of the mobile market. And don't forget that Apple are near certain to try a variety of sizes and form factors with subsequent iPhone models].

Meanwhile, a pretty good Financial Times piece has some interesting stuff. Ben Wood – a mobile analyst of great experience and savvy – notes:

“‘If the chief executive of Nokia
had stood up and said he was launching a phone that was big and heavy,
had no keyboard, was only 2G and not available for six months, he would
have been crucified,” says Ben Wood, an analyst at CCS Insight. ‘It is
unique that Apple have been able to get away with that.’

[...]

“The excitement around the iPhone stems from a simple fact: in spite of
their increasing importance in our day-to-day lives, most mobile phones
remain clunky, crammed with hard-to-use features, second-rate software
and awkward keypads.”

Indeed so. The mobile handset business has, in truth, not been going
anywhere fast for years now. Usability remains dire; music, pictures
and web might have arrived on handsets, but the experience is so poor -
from handset to network – that usage remains low.

Thus, the reason the Nokia CEO would have been “crucified” is, simply,
that we’d know what was coming from Nokia: another clunky handset with
some fatal flaw, like previous Nokia devices: shocking battery life, a
bug-strewn OS, or usability flaws. All of which exist in my Nokia N90, to
pick an example.

There may be flaws in the new iPhone – indeed, we can
count on it – but Apple have a history, at least with iPod, of
aggressive development which tends to iron out those flaws. I’d be
surprised if the version of iPhone launched in Europe later this year
isn’t a second iteration with 3G, for instance. Mobile phone makers
have had years to get it right, and consistently haven’t. We might have had converged, feature-rich devices for ages – but the iPhone may be the first such device to make us realise it’s all there, and then make us want to use it.

However, you can go too far in assessing Apple’s strategic nous. Scott
Karp of Publishing 2.0 is surely moving into conspiracy theory
territory when he implies AT&T was deliberately picked by Apple because of its
rubbish network. That said, I think how he sees this panning
out – Apple moving gradually towards selling iPhones independently of the networks – is reasonable. Other handset makers, especially Nokia,
have been trying to wrangle back power (and revenue) from networks for
some time, but without the hardware strength or force of fashion that
Apple can bring to bear.

If you wade through the strategywonk waffle, Umair Haque at Bubblegen is making broadly the same point:

“What’s Apple’s larger strategy behind the iPhone? Is there even one, or is the iPhone just a pretty face?
[...]
1) Pick an industry which sucks (ie, imposes significant nuisance costs/menu costs/externalities on consumers)
2) Redress the imbalance by making something consumers love
3) …Which disrupts the long-standing industry equilibrium, and shifts market power
4) Use said market power to redesign (a hyperefficient) value chain

Now,
note that this is a repeat of Apple’s iPod strategy writ large.
Conversely, if you don’t swallow the argument, consider the fact taht
the economic pressures created by the iPhone will most likely force
Apple to tread this path, whether they like it or not.”

Which is a similar outcome to Scott’s, but arrived at less
through strategic design, more through riding the wave that Apple
itself may start; less Bond villain cunning, more realistic.

That said, it’s worth noting they journey is not as simple as Umair makes out; redressing an imbalance “by making something consumers love” is something of a holy grail in real life, no?

Finally, I know Steve Jobs will be relieved to learn from an
earlier post that Umair has, “over the last couple of years [...]
developed a huge – and grudging – amount of respect for Steve Jobs.”

“From
my pov, he’s gone from simply being one of the very, very few people to
understand the value of design and marketing in a valley of the Geeks,
to learning from his numerous mistakes – and so becoming one of the
world’s true commercial visionaries.”

I’ve heard it said before.

All is led from high-tech control centres that could be thousands of miles distant from any one of the moving parts; centres that anticipate demand and set in motion the huge machine to fulfil your need. This is the business that brings you bananas all year round, cheap furniture in the colour you want on the bank holiday weekend you need it, the latest cool Christmas toy in November not January.

Except for Apple, which appears – despite its achingly cool design and smart-ass ads – to have Bob from the local hardware store running its entire logistics operation. He’s been there years. “Dang,” he says, in my mind, in between spits of his chewing tobacco. “We’re out. Better order in some more come Monday!”. And it’s Wednesday. Then he goes back to his trucking magazine.

This, friends, is the only imaginable reason Apple couldn’t sell me a £50 power supply for my G4 Powerbook yesterday, either physically or online, with a two to four week waiting time. Service on the NHS is better. They obviously didn’t spot a run on the damned things as they fizz-popped their way to death. Bah. And now my Powerbook is useless.

[Update: The answer. Ugly, but available - and £15 cheaper too.]

When are they going to give us the damned TV? Maybe we’re expected to work it all out using the new Mac mini… it just seems a little un-Apple to me.

* Note to passing pedants: yes, I know that my hi-fi will, all told, cost more than this. And I’d agree that one must mark this thing at least partly on its audio quality, which may or may not be superb. But you can also buy a pretty good amp and speakers for £249, if you head on to eBay or down to Richer Sounds…

[Update: I'm suffering from Post-Traumatic Apple Event Disorder]

Apple has used IBM’s PowerPC processors since 1994, but will begin a phased transition to Intel’s chips, sources familiar with the situation said. Apple plans to move lower-end computers such as the Mac Mini to Intel chips in mid-2006 and higher-end models such as the Power Mac in mid-2007, sources said.

The announcement is expected Monday at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, at which Chief Executive Steve Jobs is giving the keynote speech.

For my money, I suspect this is true. Rumours have been persistent over recent months that Apple was in talks, and while it could have been for a new breed of consumer devices that don’t rely on the OSX operating system, that always sounded a bit unlikely.

But the move, if/when it is announced, raises interesting questions – not least what happens to everyone still using PowerPC-based systems, and about software compatibility, and about whether or not one should invest in Apple hardware over the next year or so prior to the move.

The biggest questions are, however, strategic; not what lots of people are already asking – will other manufacturers be able to make machines that run OSX – but rather: will this mean all existing PCs can run OSX? Or will Apple add something to the Intel chipsets to make sure only Apple hardware can run OSX?

Let’s hope it is the former – because I think OSX versus Windows Longhorn (when it finally arrives) could be a very interesting battle indeed for PC users, not least because Longhorn has had its… er… horns clipped, feature-wise, in order to get it shipped that year. And if Longhorn ship dates continue to slip, it could be OSX versus old Windows XP – and that battle has already been called in Apple’s favour by many, including Walt Mossburg:

"Overall, Tiger is the best and most advanced personal computer operating system on the market, despite a few drawbacks. It leaves Windows XP in the dust."

Longer term, it might be convenient for the iPod-era Apple to get out the long-since commoditised PC market, and focus on its fringes; higher-margin digital home devices, and the very high end workstations on which it still makes decent margins. Its big products for the PC market would then just include annual versions of its operating system, and new or improved online services for which it can charge rolling fees.

Truth is, Apple – by design or good fortune – has done far better at exploiting the opportunities to sell online services to consumers than Microsoft has. Taking that battle onto MS’s home turf, just as MS has to make a vital play, could be a symbol of just how confident Apple now is about the strength of its software, and strategy.

Update: More from News.com, this time on how the deal could play in Hollywood. This story seems a little thinner, mind you – like a news editor has told the reporter to spin the big exclusive out, and this was the best they could come up with…