iPhone Buzz

Why does CES and MacWorld overlap? I get the draw of making them back-to-back so folks from abroad and the American east coast who make the trip to Vegas can do a quick puddle jumper to San Francisco.

It's great from a budget and time perspective, so people can catch everything they want from the world of consumer technology in one long week, but the overlap kills people on both sides, whether they're a vendor or an attendee.

Everyone who is NOT attending seems to think that both shows are about the new iPhone, which is too bad for so many other small and mid-sized companies launching interesting things.

I was thinking about some of the accessory vendors who bought booth space on the very last aisle of the main convention center, which very few people even discovered unless they were looking for an exit or a bathroom and accidentally landed there.

How cost effective can it be for anyone in the last row of such a gigantic event? I wonder. Do all of these vendors have someone who proactively crunches the numbers after each event like this?

Steve Jobs is the talk of the town, once again. (both of them - Vegas and SF). Press and bloggers alike (yeah, the latter seems to have gained more respect this year), lined up to hear his talk.

ABC News covered the iPhone news, and referred to him as the Babe Ruth of Silicon Valley and the "man who could do no wrong." I couldn't help but think - does Jobs own this station? It was so adoring. Could they have perhaps included an interview with a non-blonde woman who does not think that the new iPhone will be the best thing since sliced bread?

Jobs starts addressing his fans by saying, "Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone."

ZDNET discusses some of the things my community wants to know more about - blogging, photos, photocasting, podcasting and videoblogging.

Says ZDNET around these features:

"Blogging/Photos/iLife - perhaps why we didn't see an update to iLife as well, is because they are working to tie the phone into the whole package. I can already see remote blogging, syncing with iPhoto, and creating photo pages on dot Mac right from your phone.

Photocasting - if you are familiar with iPhoto's ability to create what are called Photocasts, then imagine creating Photocasts that can be viewed on and created by the iPhone. This requires some dot Mac magic but is totally within the realm of belief.

Podcasting/Videoblogging - No doubt the iPhone will have voice recording capability and video capability…which ads a new dimension to creating podcasts and video blog entries on the fly."

Not everyone in my circles at CES is convinced. (vendors, reporters in the press room at the Sands, bloggers and podcasters in the BlogHaus at the Bellagio). Also see InformationWeek's Mitch Wager's take: "I just don't get it." Says Mitch:

It's a cell phone that's also an iPod that does the Internet and takes pictures. Why is that exciting? I already have a cell phone and an iPod, and my cell phone -- a 14-month-old Palm Treo 650 -- is Internet-enabled and a cameraphone too. I grant you there will be a huge attraction, for some people, in combining their iPods and cell phones into a single device. But, still, nothing about the iPhone is convincing me it'll slay dragons.