And it’s not an iPhone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And it’s not an iPhone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Update:I’ve changed my mind. It sounds like “users can’t install software on the iPhone”:http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/gartenberg/archives/2007/01/whats_missing_f.html, despite their boasting that it runs OS X. Lame lame lame. I don’t expect it to be able to install just any OS X app, but I’d really like to be able to install things with form-factor appropriate UIs.

What bullshit, pretty much any other phone at that pricepoint has user installable software.

If Steve Job’s “And another thing” at the end of his keynote is that he’s stepping down due to Apple’s stock option backdating problems, at least he’d be doing it with a nice full product pipeline.

So, Apple has finally announced the iPhone. It looks really slick. I really wonder though about the fact that it only has one button. Tactile feedback is a good thing. I’m not sure I’d want a phone without it, which is one of the reasons those PDA-like windows mobile phones sucked so bad.

I like that it apparently runs OSX. Hopefully that means that anyone can write an app for it. Equally hopeful that the cell carriers won’t cripple the features. (Update: “So much for hope”:http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/gartenberg/archives/2007/01/whats_missing_f.html )

I bet it’s way more money than I’m willing to pay.

My wife finds another sign that the end of days is here

We went to see Children of Men tonight. It was really good, but so bleak and horrible and haunting that I don’t know if I could see it again.

It’s also the first time movie a movie reminded me of a video game. It wasn’t merely the dystopian/post-apocalyptic story and setting, which is common to video games like Half Life, Fear, and many others. It was the look and feel, the way we were given little clues to the back story, and the feeling of both engagement and inevitability.

The thing is, at least some of what made it remind me of a video game are things which made video games remind me of movies when I saw them in the first installment of Half Life a decade ago. I’m not really that big a gamer, I might play a game or two a year, and I’m not a big movie goer anymore, so it’s interesting that my frame of reference seems to have shifted.

Amazon has launced Endless.com, a new brand & website focused on shoes and handbags. Over on TechCrunch, Steve Poland is puzzled about the Endless, wondering

“did Amazon really need to launch an entirely new brand for this new shoes/handbags shopping experience? I understand people are use to the consistency of the standard Amazon.com shopping experience, but what about launching an enhanced shopping experience option in each product category on Amazon.com ?”

Handbags and shoes are major fashion items. As such, identity is everything, and shopping for a high-end fashion item at Amazon is a bit like shopping for it at Wallmart. The purchaser is going to feel that it’s tainted by tacky.

There is something larger at work too. Amazon has built a lot scale in the past decade. But to do so, they’ve had to offerer a pretty narrow range of shopping experiences. That’s served them well to this point, just as Henry Ford did well offering one model of car in one color. To hold onto their position now, and continue advancing, they need to start offering differentiated experiences, like GM did by offering different colors, models, and ultimately, brands.

Endless is Amazon’s first foray in that direction, and in time, i’d expect that they’ll start offering white-label e-commerce services that can allow a similar degree of customization.