Aaron Adams’s Blowhard Blog

Wow, I dunno if this is fake, but it certainly looks real. I don’t want to be too sure of myself, however, because I’ve been duped before. So let’s just treat this as a little exercise in creative thinking.

iChat Mobile seems like the perfect name for an Apple phone product. It ties into an existing piece of Apple software used for communicating with your friends. The tag line under the product name sounds just like a tag line Apple would use. The device seems very simple and it’s stylistically consistent with other Apple devices, like the iPod nano, the iPod shuffle, and the Apple remote.

But here’s the kicker… Imagine that it’s not a cell phone. Instead, it’s an 802.11-enabled VoIP phone. You’d need to be in range of a wireless access point, and then you’d use your iChat Mobile to make a call through an Apple VoIP server to a PSTN phone number. Your number travels with you as you and your phone change wireless networks. There would certainly have to be a fee of some kind for Apple to recoup the costs of building the support infrastructure, for maintenance, and for profit. Perhaps it’ll be tied into .Mac in some way, as in, you can pre-pay for a discounted year of service as part of your .Mac subscription.

Think about it… Why would Apple want to enter the already crowded cell phone market and tie themselves to a provider when they can set the standard in an emerging VoIP market that really has no dominant player, and they can control the service themselves? Sounds a lot like the music scene a few years ago, doesn’t it?

This could all be a complete fantasy. We’ll know Monday. But you gotta admit, even if the phone isn’t real, the concept makes good sense.

PS: What appears to be a camera on the back isn’t for video chatting, it’s for taking pictures… just like the camera on the back of many cell phones. The phone would have IM capabilities like its namesake and the camera would allow you to send pictures as you would in an IM chat. A combination of audio chat an IM in this device would truly make it an iChat Mobile.

I’ve been told a little secret that I can’t hold in, and I figure if I’m going to blab about it, I might as well go all-out and let as many people know as possible. Steve and his new buddy Neil Armstrong will be traveling to Hawaii in Steve’s jet fuel-powered Gulfstream flying palace sometime in the next few weeks. That’s about all I know, and the news is going to hit the usual sites sometime before the weekend. Apparently Steve has ordered the pilot to lay on the throttle to make up for whatever pollution Woz’s hydrogen-powered sissy machine doesn’t expel.

Go Steve!

I’m pretty stoked about the WWDC keynote next Monday. I’ve enjoyed watching OS X evolve, and I’m damn excited to see what Leopard brings. Any other hardware or software announcements are icing on the cake, as far as I’m concerned.

However, there’s a dark side to every Apple announcement. I’ve seen enough keynotes that the reaction to them is painfully predictable. I’ll make no secret of the fact that I dread the aftermath. In that spirit, I present…

My WWDC 2006 Predictions

• John Dvorak will write a trolling column complaining about every keynote announcement.
• Rob Enderle will make a comment to the drive-by media that is completely devoid of facts, and it will become gospel among the tech press and irrational Apple haters.
• Mac-Macs will immediately complain that new Leopard features will unnecessarily consume resources and slow their machines down.
• Mac-Mac developers will immediately set out to create applications that turn off all of Leopard’s new features.
• Steve will pull an iPhone from his rectum and throw it directly at some unlucky crowd member and shout, “There ya whiny little bastards! Are you happy now?”
• Immediately afterwards, he’ll bend the screen and hinge of a MacBook backward, breaking it, and yell, “Here’s your goddamn tablet too. Now leave me the fuck alone!”
• Pundits and Mac-Macs will complain that the new iPhone / Apple tablet are too expensive, and they won’t be shy in letting the rest of the world, who doesn’t give a damn, know that they won’t buy one.
• “Leopard doesn’t fix [some perceived problem that affects two users who have been flooding forums with complaints about their particluar self-created mess]!”
• “I can’t believe Apple is making us pay for a point upgrade! If I buy that for $129, I may not be able to retire!”
• “…blah blah blah operating system tax.”
• Apple’s stock will take a dip, and some jackoff analyst(s) will declare Apple’s doom.
• “Apple is forcing me to buy .Mac!”
• “I hate .Mac! I refuse to buy .Mac! The fact that .Mac even exists has made me impotent! Ninety-nine dollars a year is so much… it’s like all my house payments for a year combined! Oh God, I hate .Mac so much I’m not sure I can go on living anymore! Someone kill me! Gaaahahahhhhbalhgraaablah!”
• “Should I buy a new Mac now, or wait until Leopard comes out?”
• “The new Finder doesn’t meet my personal high standards for software behavior and quality, therefore, it shouldn’t meet yours either.”

Did I forget any? Leave a comment.