The TUAW podcast is back in effect ladies and gents, though this week we're a tad late due to some technical difficulties. Nevertheless, expect a steady new stream of podcasts and screencasts from here on out, starting with today's entry: TUAW Podcast #23: There and Back Again with the iPhone. Fellow TUAW blogger Michael Rose and I explore the iPhone's past, including how far back speculation about one of Apple's most anticipated devices actually reaches, as well as when Apple first gave away any hints that it was even considering such a device (hint: it's older than the 4.5 years Jobs mentioned at Macworld 07). We then take a look at the state of the iPhone now, less than a month from its expected release, why the corporate and enterprise worlds are taking an unexpected interest in it, what happened with the 'iPhone/Leopard delay' email hoax Engadget experienced on Wednesday and how powerful that kind of news can really be. Heck, even a tech-savvy dolphin makes it into the show - where else are you going to hear that?
Michael wanted to clear up one specific piece of data we spoke about, however: we were discussing some differences between the iPod and iPhone, and Michael indicated the MP3 player retail market hit $600m in March. Turns out he was a tad high, as these numbers from Bloomberg put the number for MP3 players sold at retail at just under $225m. Just wanted to make sure we're keepin' it real.
You can snag a copy of this 36 minute, 17 MB AAC (m4a) podcast from our iTunes Store Podcast directory, this direct link or our own podcast rss feed. Enjoy!
Update: It took a couple of days for iTunes to catch up with our podcast feed, but as of Monday the show is appearing on the iTunes store. Sorry for the delay.
Show Notes
Links mentioned in the podcast:
- Engadget official response to Apple delay memo issue: http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/17/regarding-yesterdays-apple-news/
- MacRumors iPhone speculation from 2002: http://www.macrumors.com/2002/08/18/apple-iphone-rumors-speculation/
- Jason O'Grady isn't buying (still?): http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/index.php?p=335
- Fierce Wireless timeline of iPhone speculation: http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/timeline-apple-iphone-rumors-1999-present
- The Onion's Flappy the Dolphin on the iPhone: http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/test_driving_the_new
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-18-2007 @ 4:01PM
Frank said...
What I'm still wondering -- and maybe this is covered in your podcast -- is whether Apple can actually handle such a high-profile 1.0 release. We hard-core Apple fans know to "Wait for Rev. B" since Apple's stuff is usually so revolutionary it takes a couple of revs to hammer out the bugs (think OS X, the PowerBook G4, the PowerMac G4). Even the iPod was 3rd- or 4th-generation before it really caught on to the mainstream market (and the iTunes store came online).
But the iPhone will be the most high-profile public launch of a new product in Apple history. Can they pull it off? I hope so, 'cause I really want to buy a Rev. A iPhone.
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5-18-2007 @ 6:13PM
josh k said...
it is killing me that there is NO information out there about which version of the flash player can be used with the safari browser. performance wise if it can handle flash player 9 that would be sweet.
i know. i know. wait and see.
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5-18-2007 @ 6:42PM
Jacob said...
This wait for Rev.B talk is vastly overblown imo. Apple's hardware failure rates are directly in line, and often times better than industry averages. OS X is a bona fide stable OS now, so I don't see the major concern. Of course there will be hardware failures and software glitches, and people will bring up this nonsense about never buy Apple Rev.A equipment upon the iPhone's release, but that's just because everything Apple does is under a microscope, and scrutinized by pedantic fanboys; not because they have higher incidences of failure.
Now if there is some show-stopping bug or malfunction, then I'll give Apple hell, but not because I read a few reports on the forums and start buggin' out. Reading that stuff will make you aware of things you previously never even noticed. I bought the MBP for instance and everybody on the Apple support forums was talking about the whine. I went and checked mine and sure enough I had it also. It made me OCD crazy to the point I had to return it. Just for kicks, I went back and checked my previous laptop, of which I had for years, and it exhibited the same yet slightly "noisier" electronic whine that I never noticed. Ignorance is bliss...
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5-18-2007 @ 7:02PM
Dave Chartier said...
When you look at the grand scale of things, Apple's occasional problems with RevA products is are the very, very vast minority. They sell millions of Macs each quarter - *millions*. Typically, it's a few hundred machines that go sour, but those few help blow the perspective completely out of proportion for those in the crowd paranoid about this kind of stuff.
In reality, when things go wrong, it's a very, very select few out of the greater batch of products. RevA products are fine, and more importantly: the vast majority of customers aren't keeping this close of an eye on companies and their product offerings. Whether that's a good or bad thing is a discussion for another time, the point is: a ton of people are going to buy an iPhone the second one is available for them. A select few might have issues, but on the whole, as long as it's a solid product, Apple is likely to knock one out of the park.
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5-18-2007 @ 10:00PM
Reg Muffet said...
Is there another feed, or is it true that this can't be put on an iPod?
I have a 5G iPod, fully up to date, which can play hundreds of other video podcasts with no issue.
I know some podcasts are putting out videos optimized for the AppleTV, but they are usually in a separate feed. I can't find another listed for TUAW.
Seriously? A podcast that has no option for playing on an iPod?
Did you even test this, or simply don't care?
I don't want to jump to conclusions, but at the moment I'm thinking TUAW are either incompetent, or arrogant. Either way, you've lost a potential viewer.
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5-18-2007 @ 11:20PM
narco said...
The dolphin segment had me rolling, especially because you guys sounded so sincere. Great work once again, TUAW.
Fishes,
narco.
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5-19-2007 @ 12:08AM
Michael Rose said...
#5 -- Reg, are you talking about this episode? It's not video, audio only (.m4a, AAC format) and should play fine on an iPod. I'll double-check it on mine.
I didn't do the encoding for this episode (or earlier ones) but I'll ask David to check his settings.
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5-19-2007 @ 12:09AM
Michael Rose said...
Thanks narco. The plight of the cetacean cellphone user is nothing to make light of. :-)
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5-19-2007 @ 5:14PM
rich said...
I can't get this podcast on my ipod either. The feed in iTunes doesn't have it, and when I download the .m4a file, dragging it into iTunes does nothing. The only way to listen is embedded in the page in Safari.
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5-19-2007 @ 7:34PM
Dave Chartier said...
I'm honestly not sure what the problem is with the file, especially since I brought it into iTunes as a WAV, edited all its metadata and used iTunes to turn it into an m4a file. Plays perfectly fine in mine. I'll take a better look into this.
As for the iTunes Store, I had to ping their system that checks feeds for podcasts. For some reason it wasn't picking this latest episode up, but it should soon.
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5-19-2007 @ 9:37PM
ThunkDifferent.com said...
Thanks for the podcasts, good stuff. i look forward to some more rollicking anda' rolling next week.
Have a great weekend!
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5-20-2007 @ 11:43AM
Kyle said...
This podcast isn't showing up in itunes...
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5-21-2007 @ 11:17AM
YodaMac said...
Still not showing up in iTunes. I am subscribed to your podcast, and no new episode is showing up, nor can I find it by checking the iTunes store myself.
Please post an update if/when this is fixed. Thanks.
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5-21-2007 @ 12:59PM
Frank said...
Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. I wasn't talking about hardware failure rates in Rev. A products, per se, I was more talking about the feature set. Things like battery life, etc. usually get a major bump in Rev. B.
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5-21-2007 @ 9:26PM
Michael Rose said...
Hi everyone,
The iTunes Store appears to be caught up (at last!) with the podcast feed.
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5-21-2007 @ 11:49PM
Dave Chartier said...
For the record, we had some technical difficulties with the feed that the iTunes Store watches. Our crack team of code ninjas applied some of their magic and we should be good to go from now on.
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