I’m just going to throw this out there, for the record…

Three interesting things about Apple’s Keynote on Tuesday (1.9.06):

• Leopard (OS X 10.5) was not mentioned once, despite being the elephant in the room.
• Apple’s iPhone is only available for Cingular.
• Apple officially changed their corporate name from “Apple Computers, Inc.” to “Apple, Inc.”

Taken together, I believe this means two very significant things:

• The next major version of Apple’s operating system will be available for the entire x86 market when it is announced
• Following suit with Apple’s Macintosh computers, Apple’s iPhone will ultimately be available for all services, after it establishes a strong consumer base within a limited population.

Apple will release OS X to the entire PC market, as it feels that is has finally reached maturity and mass-market (especially in the face of Vista). One might liken Apple’s PPC computer users to beta-testers for the operating system; the limited appeal of the closed hardware meant that Apple had time to develop and “test” their software before the final version was available. Very soon, the entire PC market will be ripe for the switch.

Notice I said “next major version” instead of 10.5. It is possible that Apple will announce in the not-too-distant future, OS XI (or 11 or whatever flashy name they’re going to give to it), an operating system for everyone, Macintosh computer or not. I believe that when Leopard is released, it will be the last Macintosh-only release; now that Macintosh has switched to i386 processors, there is no reason why Apple cannot market their operating system to the entire PC market; and seeing as they had been developing OS X for both x86 and PPC processors all along (hence, the frictionless switch to Universal Binary), this is a move I believe they have been planning all along, ever since the antitrust 10-year contracts between Microsoft and Apple were established in 1995 (or 1996, whenever it was).

Now, I’ve felt this way ever since Apple announced their switch to Intel; but Apple’s Cingular-service-only implementation of the iPhone is very reminiscent of Apple’s PPC-processor-only implementation of the Macintosh line of computers.

Apple is a smart company. They know that as soon as a universal operating system is released, Macintosh computer sales will drop, since Dell et al. will provide cheaper alternatives to Apple’s luxury vehicles; yet, standardization of Mac OS will still keep the cash flowing from the personal computer industry. Further, no matter what Microsoft does at this point, Macintosh computers will still be released, and they will still be of the “elite” class of computers that provide the best experience for running Mac OS. Apple wins either way.

Meanwhile, Apple’s iPhone appears to blow away the competition, technology-wise. If the iPod is anything to judge by, and given the current state of cell phone and smart phone technology, the iPhone will make all other products in the line look like crackerjack box toys. And, like Apple did with Macintosh computers, people will have to Switch to Cingular to experience what the iPhone can offer… until the rest of the industry catches up, wherein it will become more difficult for Apple to profit from their uber-expensive technology; they will open up their phones to the rest of the cellular world, lower the price (maybe), and move on to the next big thing… which, I’m sure, by that point, will be very closely tied with the film industry, whatever it is…

Anyway, I’ll revisit this in a year (1.10.08), and we’ll see how wrong I am.

Of course, in the off-chance that I’m right about any of this… you heard it here (bxyldy / ks) first.

SAD

Amazon mystery: pricing of books - Los Angeles Times: “Imagine this: You go to a bookstore, browse, choose a couple of volumes. But you don’t want to carry the books around. So you ask the clerk to hold the tomes until Saturday, when you’ll come back to buy them.

When you return, the bookseller hands you the items but advises you that he’s raised the prices. ‘I knew you were hot to buy them,’ the clerk says, ’so I figured I could make a few extra bucks.’

That’s what it feels like online bookseller Amazon.com Inc. has been doing to me.”

(Via reddit.)

This comes after rumors of Memory Industry Corporations‘ price fixing allegations, Apple’s stock option scandal (and other lawsuits), Microsoft’s practice of systematically erasing all corporate records older than five years’ (i’ll source it later), and, I’m sure, many others that have gone under my radar.

KRT Wire | 01/04/2007 | Bush quietly authorizes opening of Americans’ mail: ”
“

“The (Bush) signing statement claims authority to open domestic mail without a warrant, and that would be new and quite alarming,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington.

“The danger is they’re reading Americans’ mail,” she said.

“You have to be concerned,” agreed a career senior U.S. official who reviewed the legal underpinnings of Bush’s claim. “It takes Executive Branch authority beyond anything we’ve ever known.”

(Via .)

And the best part is, they’re not operationally defining what an emergency condition is, or what probable cause might be. So, essentially, the President and friends can open our mail whenever he wants, as long as he raises the Power Palette (er… Homeland Security coloring book, or whatever it is) to red.

A man sees another collapse onto the rails in a train station, just as the train is coming; he instantly decides to jump down onto the rails himself and… well, The New York Times tells the story better than I do.

Meanwhile, the FBI just announced the findings of an official investigation of the alleged abuse at Guantanamo Bay. Yeah, it’s official: prisoners are being tortured. How swell.

Insightful as always, Dan Panorama at The Purple State made the following observation:

There’s no military victory to this war, that’s what the President’s explicitly told us - we’re fighting an ideology and the only way to beat it is with a competing ideology of hope and freedom. He says it over and over again, democracy is the cure to Islamic terror. But is this it? Is this the shining example we’re giving to the Arab world of what Western democracy looks like?

It might be worthwhile to see how Amnesty International’s efforts to close Guantanamo Bay develop as a result. Here’s hoping.